by B A Trimmer
“Jerk, that’s not what I meant.”
“I know, but dance with me anyway.”
I am so going to regret this.
I stood up and Max led me to the dance floor. We ended up in the back corner of the dance floor, away from Sophie and Milo. Unfortunately, we were also away from most of the light from the candles on the tables.
A slow romantic song was playing and we started dancing. I deliberately kept my distance with my arms outstretched and my hands only lightly holding Max. I did my best to stay calm. It’s OK, I thought. I was committed to Reno and I knew I could be mature about dancing with Max. Besides, I again thought, nothing bad can happen if you aren’t dancing too close to the man.
Even if he does smell great.
“How have you been?” Max asked. “Last time we were together, all we talked about was business.”
“I’ve been busy. Mostly the usual, I’ve been abducted, pistol-whipped, harassed, almost shot, and was left to die in my trunk. But we were also able to help some people. How about you. Seems like things have been quiet.”
“Things are quiet. Tony thinks it’s only the calm before the storm. But I guess we’ll see. Nice pendant, by the way. I’m glad to see you put the diamond to good use.”
“Well, it turns out it will be overly suspicious to sell a diamond this big for a few years. But you’re right. It does make a great necklace. What about you? Have you started seeing anyone yet?”
Oh God, why did I ask that?
Max gave a small chuckle. “No, not yet. As you know, starting a long term romance is difficult between the hours I keep and my, umm, unusual profession.”
Yes! Oops, why did that make me so happy?
“You sound like a difficult person to date. I can see where romance would be a challenge.”
“I’ve missed you,” Max said as we slowly swayed back and forth to the soft music. “I assume you and your police detective are still getting along well. I’m happy for you and I hope things continue to go well, but I did want you to know I’ve missed you.”
Damn. It’s OK, be cool about it.
“I’ve missed you too,” I quietly said.
We danced for another minute in silence when I noticed that somehow I was now only inches from him and his arm was gently encircling my waist. I slowly looked up into his eyes and noticed our lips were almost touching. Without thinking, I stretched up and kissed him. My lips had taken on a will of their own and I was instantly lost in the sensations.
As the kiss deepened, I reached up and ran my fingers through his hair while my other arm tightly wrapped around his waist. I felt myself desperately clutching to him, not wanting ever to let him go again. It wasn’t only the waves of physical pleasure washing over me. I was feeling a surge of powerful emotions as well. I felt like I was flying. I was filled with an insane happiness. I was a flower in the desert soaking up a cool rain. Nothing in the world could ever hurt me again. I was safe. I was protected. I was free…
What am I thinking?
I pushed myself away and shook my head to clear it. I felt my face glowing hot and I could feel my breathing coming in short gulps.
Damn it.
I looked over and saw Sophie had stopped dancing and was staring at me, open mouthed. I then looked back over at our table. I could see Gina by the glow of the candle, shaking her head and giving me a look of motherly disapproval.
The dance ended and the lights came up. The singer said that the band was going to take a break while Danica and Alex cut the cake.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” I said, looking up into Max’s eyes. I took a step back and I could feel my face growing even hotter.
“I wasn’t complaining,” Max said, as he took a step closer to me. “In fact, it’s a shame our kisses always end so quickly. Do you still think of you and me together? From the way you kissed me, it seems like maybe you have.”
“Of course I think about it. I think about you more than I should, but you know that it’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t seem so complicated from my end. Why don’t I give you a call in a couple of days and let’s get together. For dinner this time. I’m sure we can work out any complications you are feeling.”
I just bet you could.
I closed my eyes, but I could still feel him looking at me. In that one moment in time, a feeling between desperation and panic came over me. I opened my eyes and looked up at Max. At that moment, I realized I desperately wanted to be with him.
I’m so going to regret this.
“You go back to bodyguard duty and let me think about it. Call me a few days. OK?”
“OK, you think about it and I’ll give you a call.”
~~~~
I walked back to the table, feeling somewhat like a criminal on the news doing the perp-walk of shame. Sophie had just gotten there and Gina was looking at both of us with her look of concern. I did my best to ignore it.
“Cake time,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and also trying to ignore the fact my face was no doubt still bright red.
“Why were you kissing Max?” Sophie asked. “Are things with him still complicated?”
“Complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I said. “It’s like I’m OK with not being with Max and not ever seeing him again. I remind myself having Reno in my life is good for me and we’re happy. Well, relatively happy. But then, I actually do get together with Max and I lose all control. It’s as if Reno doesn’t even exist. All I want to do is wrap myself around Max. Besides, why were you hugging Milo?”
“Well, it’s nothing complicated on my end. I’ve been drinking, I’m horny, and I want to get laid. Milo volunteered to help me out.”
“If you want my advice, both of you should run while you still can,” Gina said in her big-sister tone. “If you’re not careful, you’ll both get sucked into their world of crime.”
“I’ll be careful and I’m not going to get sucked into anything,” I said. “Now, as soon as they are done with the pictures, I need a piece of cake.”
“About time they cut the cake,” Sophie said. “It’s getting late. I’m going to have a piece of cake and then I’m outta here. Milo’s coming over after the reception and I need to clean my apartment. I’ve sort of let it go the past couple of weeks.”
“How bad can it be?” I asked.
“I like to eat dinner while I’m in bed watching TV,” Sophie said. “I’ve got a bunch of old to-go boxes in my bedroom. They’re starting to stack up and some of them are beginning to get a little fuzzy.”
“Do you really think Milo will care what your apartment looks like?” Gina asked.
“Gina’s right,” I said. “Put on something suggestive. If you open the door wearing a negligée, Milo wouldn’t notice if there’s a dead body on the floor.”
From across the room we saw the wedding party had gathered around the cake for pictures. We got a good laugh when Danica delicately smashed a piece of cake in Alex’s face.
When the pictures were done, a line for cake started to form. Gina and Sophie stood up and began to drift over, still chatting about Milo. Off to one side, I saw Tony watching the festivities. Max was again close to Tony, acting as his unofficial bodyguard.
I also saw that Gabriella was hovering off to the side, keeping watch over the entire crowd. I noticed how well she blended herself in with the crowd, the sign of a true professional. If I hadn’t known who she was, I wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual about her. She would have looked like an athletic wedding guest with a big shoulder bag.
Looking back at Max brought on a wave of confusion and sadness. Suddenly I couldn’t look at him anymore. My eyes filled with tears and I walked to the back of the ballroom. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and I didn’t want either Sophie or Gina to see me crying.
It was a mistake to have danced with Max, I thought as the tears slid down my face. When he calls, I’ll agree to be his friend, but nothing more. No going out. Not for drinks, not for din
ner, and definitely not anywhere where we are totally alone.
Like his apartment? Yum!
Most of the guests had drifted over to where Danica and Alex were handing out pieces of cake. In my corner in the back of the ballroom, it was almost completely dark. The only light was a few faint circles on the floor from the dimmed overhead lights.
As I was composing myself, I noticed one of the security guards doing doorway duty had pulled out his cell phone. In my melancholy state, I silently hoped Tony or Max didn’t catch him doing that. I’m not sure what rules hoodlums have while on duty, but I was pretty sure checking Facebook while you’re supposed to be guarding the perimeter isn’t allowed. I looked over to where the crowd was still gathered around Danica and saw that Tony was next in line to get a piece of cake.
I looked back over at the guard. Apparently, his phone wasn’t working because it wasn’t giving off the telltale glow and I saw he was still messing with it. There was a spot of dim light on the floor about ten feet from the door he was guarding and I watched as he casually walked over to the light.
My feelings of goodwill for the guard faded as I watched him doing something stupid like leaving his post to check his phone. I started to feel a little vindictive and now I sort of wanted someone to see what he was doing, just so I could hear him getting yelled at by his supervisor.
My, I’m suddenly in a bitchy mood.
As I watched him get to the light, I saw he didn’t look like one of Tony’s typical henchmen. This guy was short and on the skinny side. Now that he was in the dim light, I saw he wasn’t holding a cell phone, but a cellphone sized black box with only a couple of buttons on it and an old fashioned rubber antenna sticking out of the top. He was angling it in the faint light to be able to see the buttons. I slowly walked closer as the guy fiddled with the device. He looked up, gazing at the crowd gathered around the cake. The guy must have sensed movement because he looked over at me.
The man had a thin moustache and the right side of his face was discolored. I looked into his small squinty eyes and there was instant recognition by both of us. This was the same guy who had tried to kill me a few months before. The same guy who had thrown a hatched at my car after I had sprayed him in the face with a can of wasp killer. This guy was a soldier for Carlos the Butcher.
Time went into slow motion as my mind began to race. I looked at the box the guy was holding and at the antenna sticking out of the top.
Shit!
I desperately looked around. Danica and Tony were chatting as she handed him a plate. Directly behind them was the tower of the cake. Everything came together in an instant. Gina said the top layer of the cake looked mashed and had fingerprints in it. In my mind, the top of the cake now seemed as though it had a spotlight on it.
“Bomb!” I shouted. “The cake! Everyone out!”
Without thinking, I took off running towards the guy. My only thought was to take down this creep while was still fiddling with the black box. I vaguely heard people screaming, people running, and then the start of a general panic. In four steps, I crashed into the guy. But even as we both crashed to the floor, I saw his thumb close on a red button in the center of the box.
There was a blinding flash and the deafening sound of an explosion. Both the creepy guy and I were thrown against the back wall of the ballroom. I couldn’t see anything but bright dots and my ears were loudly ringing. I was stunned and shook my head to try to clear it. Then the guy was on top of me, trying to punch my face while I was trying to block his blows. In the background, I heard more screaming and people running.
Something hard crashed against the side of my head and hot pain radiated from behind my ear. I might have heard the burrrrrrrrp of an Uzi and men yelling. I again shook my head and tried to clear it but it was a fight I was rapidly losing. I felt myself starting to float and the world faded into darkness.
Sixteen
When I work up, I was in a hospital room and it seemed to be very bright. There were a lot of machines and I could tell it was a room in an intensive care unit. I wondered how long I had been unconscious. I had vague memories of being awake several times during the night but those memories were already fading.
I carefully turned my head and saw Gabriella standing at the door, still in her outfit from the night before. I slowly turned my head to the other side and saw Tony DiCenzo, who was looking out of the window.
I’d been in this clinic before. It was located off Shea Boulevard at the base of the McDowell Mountains. I also knew the view of Scottsdale that Tony was seeing. Almost on a par as the view from the Dobbins Lookout, in one glance you could take in all of Scottsdale.
I started to panic. Why was I in the hospital? My head was pounding, but otherwise I felt uninjured. Tony must have heard me moving around because he turned and looked at me.
“I see you are with us again. Before you speak, please don’t concern yourself about being in an intensive care unit. The doctor will be in shortly but he has already told me you are in no danger. The concussion you have is mild. They gave you a sedative and some pain medication when you came in last night. The doctors have assured me that by now you will have slept off most of the ill effects of the blow you took.”
I reached up and gently felt the new bump on my head. As I did, I pulled a small piece of wedding cake out of my hair.
“What happened?” I asked. I was still groggy and my words were coming out as a series of mumbles. “How did I get hurt?”
“It was the man you were fighting with. He hit you with a metal box he was holding, presumably the transmitter he used to set off the bomb.”
It was then that I looked over and saw Max was lying unconscious on a bed. For some reason, I hadn’t recognized him before now. In my dazed state, I had assumed I was in a hospital room with a stranger. He had a respirator tube going into his mouth and he was connected to a dozen machines with tubes and wires.
Oh my God.
The worst part was his face. It was a pasty grey color that instantly made me tear up. It was the color of someone about to die. Tony saw where I was looking and he walked over to Max’s bed.
“Max placed his body between the bomb and myself,” he said with a curious mix of sadness and reverence in his voice. “Unfortunately, Max took most of the explosion.”
“Tony, he’s going to be OK, isn’t he?”
“Honestly, it’s too soon to tell. He was in surgery for over three hours last night. The doctors who worked on him are the best, but they say the next twelve hours will be critical. They say either he’ll show signs of improvement or his condition will deteriorate, perhaps rapidly. That’s why I had you brought into the ICU last night. I wanted to explain to you personally what had happened, but I also don’t want to leave this room until I know about Maximilian, one way or the other.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“Max was the only one sent to the hospital, excluding yourself. When I say he placed himself between the bomb and me, it would be more accurate to say that he threw himself at the table and tackled the cake. By doing so, he knocked it away from the crowd that had gathered around it. He then used his body as a shield to protect not only myself, but also everyone else in the room.”
“My God.”
“It was only your warning and Max’s actions that prevented many more people in the room from being injured, or worse. From what we’ve been able to piece together, I was the intended target of the bomb. The explosive was at head level and the bomber was apparently waiting until I was standing directly next to the cake. Once again, it appears you have saved my life. I thank you for that and again I owe you.”
“Tony, is Muffy OK? What about Danica and Alex? Sophie and Gina?”
“Danica and Alex are fine, although they will have an interesting wedding story to tell their children. Like most of the people in the room, Margaret Sternwood was knocked on her ass by the blast but she is otherwise uninjured. However, she is madder than I’ve ever seen her. As you know, I’
ve had a longstanding business relationship with both her and her late husband. Because of this, I am free to discuss certain facts with her that I could not discuss with an outsider. She was here until late last night and it was all I could do to keep her from going after Carlos herself.”
In spite of everything, I still managed a small laugh.
“Muffy still has it going on, doesn’t she? I imagine she was quite a force when she was younger. What about Sophie and Gina?”
“Your co-workers, Miss Rodriguez and Miss Rondinelli, were both here with you last night. They’re both fine and they both know you’re in no danger from your injuries. In fact, I believe Miss Rodriguez has already returned this morning and is in the waiting area. Hopefully she isn’t distracting Milo too much. He’s supposed to be on guard duty.”
“Tony, thank you for watching over me last night.”
Tony absentmindedly waved his hand as if the complement was mildly insulting.
Worried I had done something to upset Tony, I looked closer at him. My head was starting to clear and for the first time he was truly in focus.
My God.
He looked terrible. It was not only that he had been up all night. It was something deeper. The look on his face was a mixture of shame, anger, and regret. It was the look of a man that had failed.
“Tony, Are you OK?”
“No Laura Black, I am not OK. This whole fucked up situation is my fault. My response to Carlos the Butcher was too weak, too slow, and I’ve paid the price. Carlos hit me at a wedding, in a secure ballroom, at my top resort. My guys tell me the bomb was a simple device that only contained a crude black powder explosive. It was a device meant to maim but not to kill. If it had been encased in metal, there would have been flying shrapnel. Many more people would have been injured and some would have no doubt been killed. Carlos was sending me a message that he could hit me anytime and anywhere. I believe this was just his way of telling me to fuck-off.”
I laid there for a moment and tried to think.
“There isn’t a way to hide the fact that someone tried to kill you with a bomb,” I said. “There were almost a hundred people in the room. A lot of people are going to know what happened.”