by J. J. McAvoy
“I don’t even fucking know you! What the fuck—”
BANG!
“You shot me you fucking stupid slut! Are you fucking crazy?” Tony yelled out, grabbing his arm and taking off running towards the other room in the suite.
BANG! She shot him in the leg and he stumbled but managed to get into the bathroom.
“YOU DUMB CUNT!”
The woman dropped the gun, holding her throat and coughing, “Please, the pill—”
“He’s still alive.”
“Please…it burns…”
“You or him,” Calliope stated again. “You have only a few…your eyes….”
“NO!” the woman cried out, grabbing the gun and running to the bathroom. The poor fuck didn’t seem to have any luck, the door didn’t lock.
“Catalina! NO! Catalina!”
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
She didn’t stop firing until the clip was empty and just as quickly as she entered the room, the woman stumbled out covered in blood. Calliope lifted the antidote to her but before she could take it, Calliope stuffed it into her mouth.
“No! You said you’d give it to me.”
“Relax,” Calliope reached into her pocket and dropped half a dozen hotel mints on the ground in front of her. “They’re free with each stay.”
She’s fucking evil.
The woman, not getting it, opened the wrappers, and sure enough they were the same shape and color as the one Calliope called the ‘antidote.’
“I don’t understand…” the woman whispered. “The poison—”
“Poison?” Calliope frowned, biting into the mint. “What poison?”
“You threw poison on my face—”
“Poison? Me? It was salt,” Calliope said, faking confusion. “The script said throw salt at you, not poison.”
What? What script?
“Huh? Script?” the woman whispered.
Calliope nodded and looked over to me. “For his movie? Aren’t you auditioning too?”
I’m fucking lost.
“Auditioning?” The woman was just as lost as I fucking was.
“Yeah…where is the other guy?” Calliope asked, walking around her and moving to the bathroom. “Hey, dude, scene’s over, come on out.”
She knocked.
“Hello?” She peeked inside and then screamed. She screamed so loud I flinched. She ran back to the leather-clad woman. “What did you do? You killed him!”
“You…I…you told me to!”
“It was just an audition, what have you done?” Calliope’s eyes filled with tears as she stepped back. “You killed him.”
“No…no….”
“You killed him!” Calliope pointed to her before reaching for the phone, and the woman grabbed her arm.
“It was your gun!”
This is an epic clusterfuck, I thought, watching this foolishness.
“We need to call the police, it was an accident—”
“NO! I SAID NO!” The woman screamed, picking up the gun again and pointing it at Calliope.
Does she really not realize she’s out of bullets?
“Okay,” Calliope whispered, holding her hands up. “You escape from the balcony. I’ll stay. I’ll explain….”
The woman relaxed and looked over to me. I just stared back at her.
“Don’t worry, he’s deaf, he still thinks this is part of the script,” Calliope added for the woman, who seemed to be having a mental breakdown.
“Go, now!”
“I’ll go through the front—”
“The cameras! You’re covered in blood! We aren’t that far up, just jump!” Calliope told her.
This was the sixth floor.
“Thank you!” The woman said and rushed to balcony, still dressed in her dominatrix getup. I watched as she climbed over the railing and jumped.
“OH MY GOD!”
“CALL FOR HELP!”
“OH NO!”
The screams from below rang out as we heard the heavy thud and the sound of shattering glass. Calliope spun back to me, her face cringing in disgust. “This mint tastes so bad…but I can’t spit it out anywhere here, ugh.”
Frowning as she came towards me, she used my shirt she was wearing to turn the door handle before stepping into the hall. As we walked towards the stairs she paused, looking into one of the open rooms. I looked too, only to see the same maid who had given her the key laying on the ground. Calliope walked inside and patted the woman’s chest before reaching inside the top of the woman’s uniform.
“It’s always the bra,” she told me, taking her wad of cash back and stepping back in the hall with me. It was only when we reached the stairs did she look to the cameras on the floor, holding her cell phone to them as if it was a remote.
“Was all of this necessary?” I asked her as she moved to the stairs. “You could have just killed them both.”
“I could have, but then the police would investigate it as a double homicide, that investigation would then go to my sister, and they would discover she knew he had been cheating but did nothing. They wouldn’t believe she just let it go…it would have gotten messy. Now it simply looks like woman high on cocaine murdered her lover and threw herself off the balcony. Could I have set the stage without the acting? Maybe, but where would the fun be in that?” She winked at me and walked down the stairs causally.
“When did you think this over?” I asked her as I followed her down the stairs.
“Didn’t really think it through this time,” she unfolded the money and put it in her purse. “I saw the salt and mints in the maid cart and took them. I brought the gun to frame them…and just added to the plan. Luckily, she was a bit high. I gained her trust quickly and she jumped when I said to.”
I pretended to sulk when we got to the bottom. “You just cost me two customers.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you fucking serious right now?”
“Definitely can’t be Mrs. Callahan,” I muttered and the look on her face made the corner of my lips turn up.
“Fuck you,” she grumbled as we entered the main lobby. Guests were milling about, shocked and speaking in low tones about what they just witnessed. Meanwhile, the murderer was still grimacing about the flavor in her mouth.
“Lunch?” I asked her, gesturing to the café in the lobby.
“Yes, please.” She took my arm and followed me inside. Everyone was looking out the windows while we sat ourselves.
“Did your sister ask you to do this?” I poured water from the pitcher into her glass before filling my own.
“No. She loves him no matter what,” she replied lifting the menu. “What she saw in that limp dick, muscle brain asshole is a mystery to me. She’ll thank me one day if I tell her.”
“If you tell her?” I repeated. “So you aren’t going tell her?”
“Nope,” she said firmly as her grey eyes scanned the menu. “Bellarose has the worst taste in men.”
“And you are better?” I questioned.
“Are you asking this so I’ll compliment you right now?”
“Never.” I laughed and leaned back in the chair. “So if you took it upon yourself to kill him for your sister’s sake, you must truly love her.”
She paused and glanced up at me. “Do you really believe that?”
“Believe what?”
“That I did this because I love my sister?”
“Am I incorrect?”
She nodded, putting her menu down and her elbows on the table. “My number one priority is myself. How would I look having him as brother-in-law?”
“That’s your reasoning?” Surprise laced my tone, but then again, I would have done the same thing had it been any of the people in my family.
“People like him end up being a liability later. I told Bellarose already, fall in love with more sensible people. She didn’t listen, so I helped her along. I can’t choose my family, but I will damn well make sure my extended family is worthy,”
she answered coldly, then took a breath glancing around the restaurant for the waiter. There was more to this that she wasn’t telling. Her voice completely changed as she called out to the waiter.
“Excuse me?”
The man turned and upon seeing her, checked her out. She gave him a dazzling smile which made him smile back, until he finally noticed me sitting across from her. Slowly he came over.
“Sorry, there was an accident—”
“We heard, it’s horrible. Is she dead?” She resumed her play.
“Yes, sadly. The cops are on scene now, just closing off the area around the front of the café. We’ll most likely be closing.”
“Oh,” she said quickly, closing the menu. “We’ll just go—”
“I’ll have the chef make something for you to go, on the house,” he interjected.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, what would you like?” He leaned in closer to her, peering over her shoulder as if I was not sitting here.
It was only in that moment did I realize he was acting like this because I wasn’t Ethan Callahan. I was just some guy with a beautiful girl. He didn’t know who I was or what I could do to him. For all he knew, I was a tourist.
“Boss,” she glanced up to me, “don’t you want anything?”
It didn’t escape my notice that the waiter grinned slightly when he heard her call me Boss.
“You out of my shirt and back in my bed,” I answered, and her eyebrow raised. “But for now, I’ll have whatever you’re having and an espresso to go.”
His eyes met mine and he stood up straight, taking the menu from her. When he left, her eyes set on me.
“I thought you were tired of me?”
Rising out of my seat I offered her my hand. “Let’s eat somewhere up to our standards.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
Chapter 6
“Our souls already know each other, don’t they?’ he whispered. ‘It’s our bodies that are new.”
~Karen Ross
CALLIOPE - AGE 21
Cartagena, Colombia
Monday, July 1st
“When you said a place up to our standards, I was thinking Lucia Moyano.” It was the most expensive restaurant in the capital of Bogotá. Instead he himself flew me to Cartagena, almost an hour and half away. It was a beautiful port city on the northern coast of the Caribbean Sea.
“What? I thought you enjoyed church?” He smirked. He opened the door of his Bentley for me, and I stepped out in front of beautiful late 1500s Spanish chapel.
He was up to something. I could feel it and noticed that a few of his goons were back. I thought he had gotten rid of them. But he most likely had local people. They simply nodded to him and opened the chapel doors for me.
The first thing that came to mind was gold. It lined the walls, the ceiling, and the dome in a detailed vine pattern. It framed the priceless art which was well over eight feet high on all sides. The floors were white marble with vines of gold in them.
“So this is where El Dorado is.” I grinned, walking forward. Despite the fact that it was a chapel, hence the iconography, there were no pews. The floor was bare, almost like a mosque. I turned back to him. “Pretty, but why are we here?”
He snapped his fingers, and instinctively I tensed as people came from a room behind the altar, two lifting a short wooden table, another two lifting chairs, and others, candles, followed by silverware. I watched them create a private dinner in the center of the chapel.
“Did I sense panic from you just now?” he whispered from behind me. “What happened to trusting me?”
He wasn’t going to let me live that down.
“Are you going to pull my chair out for me?” I asked, ignoring his damn question.
The waiter retreated as Ethan stepped forward. With one hand he pulled out the chair for me, amusement clear in his green eyes. He then took his place across from me, undoing his suit jacket.
“Red or white, miss?” the waiter asked me, however, Ethan answered him instead.
“Red, the Teso La Monja.”
Nodding, the skinny man went back, and it didn’t escape my notice that everyone who had helped set this dinner up left just as quickly as they had come. Neither of us spoke, we simply waited in this golden heaven. The waiter soon came with the wine and behind him was a chef as well as servers. They placed a spread of traditional Spanish dishes across the table for us. The waiter poured the wine into my glass.
“Fill it for her,” Ethan directed, rotating the glass between his fingers, his eyes squarely on me.
What are you up to? I wanted to ask, but I drank anyway. If we were about to fight, then I wanted to at least get a drink out of it.
“Is there anything else?” They all waited on his word, and he knew that but chose to take a sip of the wine. Licking his lips before setting his glass on the table, he nodded to them.
One by one, they all left, and he relaxed back into his chair.
I drank.
“Aren’t you hungry?” he questioned.
I drank some more, still staring at him. “Are you going to do something stupid right now?”
“Stupid?” He grinned. “Aren’t you the one who wanted a date?”
“Is that what this is?” I glanced at the door. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“What does it feel like?”
“An ambush.”
A smile spread across his face. “This is the first time I’ve seen you unnerved.”
“This is the first time you haven’t bothered lying to my face, tried to freeze me over with your glare, or threatened to kill me,” I shot back at him.
“In my defense, you came on a bit strong,” he replied, lifting his wine again.
“I came on strong?”
“Are you denying it?”
“In my defense, strength is the only thing you would acknowledge.” I picked up my spoon and dug into the rice and shrimp.
“True.” He began eating from the same dish.
“So?” I pressed before taking a bite. Not bad.
He took a bite as well before answering. “So isn’t it customary for people to share details about themselves on dates? You already know me, but who are you Calliope, when you aren’t scheming, killing, and pretending to be an angel?”
I stared.
It took me a second to understand what was happening. But once that second passed, I laughed. I lifted my hand to cover my hand over my mouth. He was serious.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ethan,” I shook my head, not able to contain the laughter, “we really need to work on your date face, you look like you’re planning my execution.”
“I wasn’t before,” he grumbled before frowning. It almost looked like he was about to pout. “It’s not my fault you’re paranoid.”
He’s cute when he’s not in boss mode.
Shaking my head again I took a deep breath and leaned in. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Will you tell me everything about you?” I whispered.
“You seem to know a lot—”
“I know what is obvious, or what I’ve read or been told by outside parties. Who are you under the boss?” I asked him.
His eyes narrowed, and I realized he did that when he didn’t trust something not when he wanted to be an ass. “You keep avoiding speaking about yourself. Why? One would think you only cared about getting as much information out of me as possible.”
I smirked at that. “Who’s the paranoid one now?”
“Still stalling.” He ripped into the bread with his hands to eat with the soup. “Suspicious. Maybe I should go back to cold glares.”
I rolled my eyes at that. “Have you ever thought maybe I don’t talk about myself because it’s painful?”
“Obviously it will be painful. People aren’t born monsters, we are molded into them from childhood,” he replied before taking a bite. “So what was your crucible? Ruthless parents?”
; “Indifferent parents,” I answered, reaching for the bread as well. “Unlike yours, my parents didn’t marry for love, and my mother never wanted children but a third one? She hated me the most; I could feel it each time she hit me. My father, he’s an on again, off again functioning drunk. Together they own a fashion and beauty line. My sisters are models and take after my parents. Avena is the future drunk of the family and Bellarose is temperamental and also violent. She hit me a lot too. In fact, I remember one Christmas she pushed me down the stairs in our home because she was jealous of the dress our grandmother got me. She got one, too, but she was upset mine was in her favorite color and I wouldn’t switch with her. I shattered my jaw and two ribs that Christmas. I think that’s why I found it amusing you thought there was some profound sisterly bond between us…there has never been such a thing. My family is a broken mess, but like I said before, you can’t choose the family you’re born into.”
He lifted his glass to his lips, “Do you hate your sister?”
“I’m indifferent.” I shrugged, dipping my bread in the soup.
“Liar,” he said, causing me to look into his green eyes. “If you were indifferent, you would have let her marry the idiot from this afternoon, or you would have made him disappear quietly, and she could pine for him for the rest of her life. Instead you exposed her to ridicule. She won’t be implicated in the crime, but everyone is still going to know her fiancé was murdered while wearing bondage gear, high on coke, with another woman.”
“It’s not like I knew he’d be in bondage gear.” I couldn’t help the grin on my face as I ate the bread.
“You knew I would most likely follow you,” he added. “You wanted me to see you today.”
“I told you not come—”
“Knowing full well it would make want to come even more. That’s your weapon; you make people think they’re doing what they want when you’re really pulling the strings.”
“And here I thought you were the puppet master?” I shot back.
He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m on your level yet.”
“Ethan Callahan, is that humility I’m seeing?” I gasped in mock astonishment.