Five in a Row

by Jan Coffey

  It was a struggle, but Emily managed to turn her attention back to the pancakes. She flipped them before they burned. Ben was once again talking into the phone. His frown revealed that he didn’t like what they were telling him. He told them to have Jeremy Simpson call him back and gave the dispatcher his cell phone number and her home number.

  Emily knew they wouldn’t get any closer. This creep had disarmed the security at the café. He had bypassed her code for the answering machine. Those were easy enough jobs for a knowledgeable hacker. But Emily had no doubt that the jerk who was terrorizing her was also smart enough to route his calls through other ports. There would be no tracing them.

  “Let me guess,” she said after Ben had hung up. “It’s an international call coming from somewhere in eastern Europe.”

  “Close. This time, at least, he was using a number in Russia.”

  Fourteen

  Lyden kicked himself for not saying anything. But how could he when she was cursing him up and down? Emily sounded tense, upset. That was all Colter’s fault. The asshole was still at her house. Lyden knew because he’d been watching, waiting for the Aston to come to life.

  The scissors moved through the picture of Colter’s license plate, slicing the paper into thin strips. He continued to cut the strips until they were nothing more than confetti. Nothing more than unrecognizable trash.

  “This is you, moron. Dead. Just a trash pile on the side of the road.”

  He swept the pieces off his desk, watching them flutter like snow to the floor. “You don’t mess with me. You stay away from what’s mine, asshole. Hear me?”

  Lyden stabbed the scissor into the desk. He reached down to print out a picture of Colter he’d found on the Internet.

  The screen to his left beeped. The jolt of excitement ran deep, racing through him like voltage. Lyden pushed up his sleeves and rolled the chair across the confetti to the computer.

  “Payback time.”

  The rain of the previous day was gone. The sun was bright, and the air was crisp and clear and smelled like autumn.

  “I’ll only be gone for an hour,” Ben told Emily. For a change she didn’t try to talk him out of it and gave him a nod as he turned and went down the front steps.

  A moment later, Ben backed the Aston between a pair of evergreens and turned the car toward the street. Before pulling out, he looked back at the house again. Emily, dressed in her ivory pajamas, stood in the doorway, looking like some tousled domestic angel.

  An unexpected thrill went through Ben. Another time, in different circumstances, he wouldn’t have been pulling out of this driveway. How he felt—what she was doing to him—wasn’t normal by his standards, but he wasn’t going to analyze it. He just needed to go get his stuff, do what he had to do, and get back to her. He put the car into gear and fixed in his mind the image of her standing there.

  A police cruiser was parked at the end of her driveway on the street. Ben waved at the cop, who nodded back at him. He turned toward the village center of Wickfield.

  A colonial-era farmhouse was Emily’s closest neighbor. Ben noticed a For Sale sign out in front and wondered what the properties went for around Wickfield.

  His own interest surprised him. Something was happening in his head, and he wasn’t too sure how he should feel about it. Never in his life had he seriously considered that a domestic existence held anything for him.

  Never.

  As the Aston topped the first hill, a long valley spread out to his right. The leaves were at the height of their color, and the morning sun was doing its best to bring out the brilliance of the scene.

  He turned on the radio, trying to catch the headline news. A rap station came on. He changed it. His fingers hadn’t even retreated from the stereo system, however, when Ben felt the Aston’s engine surge.

  “What the hell?”

  He took his foot off the accelerator, glancing at the tachometer on the instrument panel. The needle was climbing. He tried the brake. No response. The car’s speed was increasing with every passing second. It felt as if the cruise control had suddenly kicked in and gone haywire at the same time.

  The decision to put the car into a spin was instantaneous. Downtown Wickfield was less than a mile ahead. Heavily traveled and sure to have pedestrians, the village roads and intersections meant real trouble at this speed. There was no way he could make it through without doing some serious damage.

  Ben yanked the wheel to the left as clouds of dust and smoking rubber filled the air. The Aston spun at least twice and at a faster speed than he’d ever experienced in his racing days. For a second, he didn’t know if he was going to stay upright.

  Ben’s head was whirling when the car took off again hugging the dirt shoulder of the road. He knew immediately that he was moving away from town.

  The scenery he’d passed before was just a blur now. Ben pressed the horn as he went by the police car in front of Emily’s house. The Aston was already doing eighty and the needle was climbing. He needed both hands on the wheel to guide the car around a sharp curve. Two wheels came off the pavement, jarring him when they hit the ground again. The car swerved wildly, but he quickly regained control. Behind him, Ben could hear sirens.

  His foot had the brake pressed to the floor. It made no difference at all. The car continued to race, but Ben’s brain was racing even faster.

  He used his voice activated car phone to call 911. Meanwhile, he slammed the gearshift forward, trying to downshift, but the transmission as well seemed to have a mind of its own, refusing to change gears. He barely heard the voice of a dispatcher asking the nature of emergency.

  “My name is Ben Colter. I’ve lost the control of my car. I’m traveling in excess of…” He glanced at the speedometer. “Ninety miles an hour and still climbing. I’m on…” He didn’t know the name of the road. “One of your cruisers is behind me. Clear the way ahead.”

  Standing on the brake pedal, Ben pulled at the emergency brake at the same time, but that had no more effect. The dispatcher’s voice was inaudible.

  He thought about what lay ahead of him and didn’t feel too good about the prospects. He was passing a large farm, and he looked right and left for somewhere he could get off the road, maybe into a field somewhere. There were trees on the left, though, and a stone wall lining the shoulder on the right. There was nowhere for him to go.

  The Aston left the ground as it raced over the top of a hill. Working hard to keep control of the vehicle, Ben clenched his jaw at the sight of a decrepit pickup truck ahead of him. They were both headed for a single-lane bridge at the bottom of the hill and Ben tried to judge whether he could get around the vehicle before they both reached it. Laying on the horn as he rapidly closed in on the truck, he saw the brake lights go on, and at the last second he swerved around it and flashed across the bridge.

  “Sorry,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

  The woods were thinning on the left, but there was still nowhere for him to go there. On the right, a slope dropped off sharply just beyond the shoulder and the stone wall went with it.

  Ahead of him, Ben could see an intersection coming up fast. It was a state highway and a hell of a lot busier than the road he was on. Just as he was trying to decide if he could get through the intersection without wiping out some family on their way to soccer practice, the wheel went slack in his hands.

  He stared in shock at the steering wheel. He had no control of the Aston at all.

  “Well, this is it,” he said aloud.

  Emily’s face flashed in his head. It was sad that he’d never see her again. They’d only just started.

  While that thought was still in Ben’s head, the car made a sudden right turn, launching into the air as it crossed the shoulder. He felt the car begin to roll in the air and felt the rear of the car clip the top of the stone wall as he flew over it.

  The Aston then slammed hard into the field, and Ben’s world went black.

  Fifteen

  “You should
listen to some hip-hop, dude.” Lyden changed the station to 105 FM and sat back in his chair, enjoying the show on his far left screen. He was tapped into Connecticut’s emergency response system. Six police cars were already en route to the accident scene. The fire company was being called out. Two ambulances.

  On his own stereo, Jay-Z and Beyoncé were working it. The music, the beat, was all around him. It was in his head. The ache in his shoulders was gone. He stretched his hands before him and cracked all ten fingers at once. His stomach growled for food.

  “Well, Emily, honey? Should I give you the good news?” He looked at the phone. “No, not yet.”

  He swiveled slightly in the chair and smiled at his new collection of pictures. All around the edge of the middle computer screen, he’d taped up copies of her face. They were from the picture he’d taken out of her office, and they looked good on his central command post. He glanced back at the screen.

  “A med-evac helicopter, too? Way cool. Well, Em, maybe I will call you.”

  As Lyden reached for the phone, though, the doorbell to his condo stopped him. He sat back in the chair, frowning. Whoever it was could just go the hell away. The door rang again, this time twice.

  The room was dark. The glow of the screens provided all the sunshine he needed. He checked the clock. Nine-thirty. No wonder he was hungry.

  Loud knocking on the front door was followed by a woman’s voice, calling his name. Lyden recognized it. Debbie, his neighbor. She’d moved into the town house next door just in the last month.

  He swiveled around in his chair. Debbie. The bitch talked too much, though she definitely knew how to use her mouth for other things. She was crude, too. Said whatever came into her head. Kind of a Mediterranean look. Impressive knockers. In her late twenties. Part-time student, part-time waitress, full-time slut. Unfortunately, she’d taken a shine to him right away.

  He’d fixed up her computer for her right after she’d moved in, and she’d come on to him strong that day. In a moment of weakness, Lyden had obliged, and she’d obviously liked getting screwed by somebody with a brain for a change. But he’d explained to her that it wasn’t going to happen again. He was too busy. Definitely not interested.

  The half dozen notes she’d taped on his door and stuffed in his mailbox told him that she didn’t believe him. She wanted him to come over, laying out in graphic detail what he could do to her and what she wanted to do to him.

  Lyden wasn’t really tempted. His interest and attention lay elsewhere. That one time with her had been enough. But last night, driving home, all he could think of was Ben Colter in Emily’s bedroom. Pulling into his parking spot at the condo, he’d actually considered knocking on Debbie’s door. After all, Emily was being distracted by that asshole. Maybe if she felt a little jealousy…

  What’s good for the goose, Lyden thought.

  The impulse had lasted only a minute. Revenge first. Without Colter hanging around, Emily would be his again. His alone. Lyden had decided to go straight to work. And now, as of this morning, Colter was history.

  The doorbell continued to ring. Debbie was not giving up.

  “I know you’re home,” she called.

  Lyden switched off the music.

  He felt like he was walking on air as he came out of the room. Debbie had her face pressed against the narrow glass running the length of the door. She brightened at the sight of him.

  “I knew you were home.”

  She pushed a box of doughnuts and couple of DVDs at him as soon as he opened the door. Without waiting for an invitation, she stepped in.

  “This is nice. I’m finally inside the lion’s den.” She closed the door behind her. “Or is it, Lyden’s den?”

  He grabbed her arm as she tried to go by him toward his basement office.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She smiled into his face. “This is the first weekend I’ve seen your car parked out there. I got up an hour ago to get ready to go to work, and I got a call about the restaurant not opening today. Some water pipe burst, so they’re cleaning up. I told myself, Debbie, this has got to be an omen. This is Lyden’s lucky day.”

  His eyes wandered to her tight, midriff-baring halter top. Very hot. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her nipples looked like they had a hard-on. He remembered the little noise she’d made in the back of her throat when he’d been sucking on them last time.

  Her eyes followed the direction of his gaze. She smiled and let the jean jacket that was draped over her shoulders drop to the floor. “So are you gonna invite me in, big boy?”

  Lyden frowned. He didn’t want to do it again with Debbie. He wanted Emily. “I don’t think so. I’m—”

  Lyden stopped when she hooked a thumb inside his belt.

  “Come on, baby. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  She took the doughnuts and videos out of his hand and started up the steps, looking back at him over her shoulder. Lyden followed, eyeing the sway of her tight jeans. He’d almost forgotten what a nice ass she had.

  “I’ve been watching you come and go,” she said. “No other girls over. No boys, either. Just the shy type, huh?”

  She stopped at the top of the stairs and turned around, putting an arm on his shoulder as he came up to the step below her. She smelled like the cosmetics counter at the mall. She was wearing the same perfume she wore when he’d fixed up her computer. It was loud and brassy, like her.

  “Or you’ve been playing hard to get. You just wanted me to come looking for you again.” She waved the films at him. “I hope you have a TV in your bedroom, because I brought a couple of my favorites…to get us in the mood and keep us in the mood. And we’ve got all day, baby.”

  “I’m not into chick flicks.”

  “You won’t find Meg Ryan in these. I just hope you’re old enough to watch them. They’re X-rated,” she said, leaning forward to whisper the last words in his ear. Straightening up, she looked around the open space that made up the main living area of the condominium. Her nipples were about two inches from his lips. “You aren’t too big on furniture, are you?”

  Lyden stared at her breasts. He knew what he had for furniture. An old sofa, a wooden crate he used as a coffee table, a TV sitting on a couple of cinderblocks in the corner, and a four-foot-wide by four-foot-high bookcase that he’d gotten in college.

  “I don’t spend much time in here,” he said vaguely as she walked toward the divider separating the kitchen.

  “This place has exactly the same layout as mine.” She dropped the stuff she was carrying on the counter and walked toward the open door of his bedroom. “Don’t like putting your clothes away, do you?”

  “Maid’s day off.”

  “Who’s the babe?” she asked, looking at Emily’s picture on the bedroom wall.

  “My girlfriend,” he whispered, moving up behind her.

  Okay, Lyden thought. One more time. His hands slipped around her, sliding up under the halter top and molding her breasts. They were firm and round. As Debbie tipped her head back, he pulled her against him. He slid one hand down over the skin of her belly and then over her jeans. He slipped his hand between her legs, cupping her as he let his gaze shift to the oversized poster on the wall. His swimsuit poster. The picture of Emily lying on the beach.

  “You didn’t tell me about her last time,” she said, trying to sound sulky. Her actions, though, contradicted her tone as she reached behind her and stroked his hardening cock through his pants. “Does she come around much?”

  “Not enough. Not yet. She’s saving herself for me—for our wedding.”

  “You poor neglected baby.” She rubbed her buttocks against him and started to unbuckle his pants. “No wonder you’re suffering like this.”

  Her shirt was riding up over her breasts, but he wasn’t looking at her. His gaze was focused on Emily’s picture, her breasts perfect under the small triangles of the bathing suit top. He took Debbie’s nipples in both hands and squeezed hard, imagining that they were
Emily’s.

  The soft moan he heard was Emily. It was her breasts in his hands. Her ass was rubbing back and forth in invitation, and she pushed his pants down over his hips. He was hard enough to explode when she touched him.

  Debbie stopped and peeled off her shirt, throwing it on the floor. She tried to turn around, but Lyden took a fistful of her dark hair in one hand and pushed her face against the door. With his other hand, he reached down and undid her jean zipper, impatiently pushing the pants down her legs.

  “We’ll get to it, big boy. What’s the rush?” she asked, a touch of nervousness in her voice even as she helped him.

  With one hand Lyden pulled her hips against him and pressed an elbow into her shoulder blade, bending her slightly. She was holding on to the door and gave a little cry as he entered her, but he was too busy to hear it.

  Staring at Emily’s picture, he was thinking only of her. She was the one with him now. He was inside her now. He could smell the body lotion on her sun-drenched skin.

  He was doing what he liked to her…and he was not done, either.

  No, Emily, he thought. You’ve been bad. You have to be punished for wandering. For being distracted.

  And he would punish her.

  Debbie was on her hands and knees now, and there was no escape. He took her as he wanted her, her hair clutched in his fist, her face pressed against the door, and he called out Emily’s name when he came.

  Sixteen

  Thirteen one-foot squares by seven across. Ninety-one squares of glossy gray floor tiles. This was the extent of Emily’s field of vision. It was more than she wanted to see.

  She hated emergency rooms. She was starting to hate this hospital. This was the second time in three days that she’d been here, though there was a lot more activity down here than there was up where the Petersons were situated.