“Let her come if that’s what she needs to do,” he said. “It’s a personal affront, and she’s as invested in this as you are, if not more.”
I didn’t like it, but Emmerson’s word was almost law, and the determined look on Hazel’s face suggested she wasn’t going to be left behind no matter what. So, against my better judgment, I let her accompany us. I left two gang members at the house with Amy to keep her safe, and Emmerson, Hazel, and I climbed into my car to head to the address my men had scouted for me.
“It’s been years since I’ve been in a car,” Emmerson commented, looking around as if he felt trapped. “It’s a deathtrap on wheels if you ask me.”
It was funny to think a man as tough and strong as Emmerson was scared of something as silly as a car, but I guess we all had weaknesses, and as far as weaknesses go, that wasn’t a bad one.
We pulled up in front of a ratty apartment building in a bad part of town. I had already called Earl who was on standby with backup if something went wrong. I walked up the stairs first, with Hazel in the middle and Emmerson bringing up the rear.
The stairwell smelled like piss, and some of the windows were broken. We passed two children who were on their way down, and they ogled us like we were aliens. What was normal to them? I wondered. It made me feel like I had raised Amy right after all, despite the gang always being in the background, and now with the death threat that hung above us.
I reprimanded myself for bringing Hazel, every step of the way. It was dangerous, and I was worried about her and the baby, but she was determined that Emmerson had her back on this. All I could do now was hope that nothing went wrong.
Between the two of us, I was sure we could keep Hazel safe. Emmerson knew she was pregnant and family meant everything to him – even if it wasn’t his own anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hazel
I still didn’t have a good feeling about meeting with Christopher Maxwell in person. Something felt wrong. It was one of the reasons I had insisted on going along. I knew I was placing myself and the baby in danger but something was bothering me, and I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Both Logan and Emmerson looked like they were out for blood. Maxwell was capable of murder, and I didn’t know how he would respond when he saw two bloodthirsty bikers on his doormat.
The door opened before we could knock. Christopher Maxwell was a reedy kind of man, with no muscle on his bones and sunken eyes almost hollow in his skull. His hair was oily and clinging to his forehead, and when he swallowed his large Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
He looked familiar, but I wouldn’t have recognized him if I hadn’t found out that he had been one of the police officers to escort us to the safe house. The idea of the safe house had been a joke – Maxwell had known where we were all along. He could have come and killed us in our sleep if he had wanted to. After he had marked Logan’s front door with the skull, I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done it.
“Hello,” Maxwell said, and his voice was eerily smooth. “I’ve been expecting you. Please, come in.”
Maxwell stood to the side, the apartment gaping wide open. I didn’t want to go into his house, I didn’t want to be trapped between four walls of a madman because that was what Maxwell looked like. Logan and Emmerson exchange glances and the three of us stepped into the apartment.
It was like stepping into a haunted museum. All the windows were boarded up, sodium lights hissing above us. It felt claustrophobic without the natural light coming into the room. Every inch of the walls was covered with different kinds of pieces of art – from abstract to classical to modern pieces that were three-dimensional. If it weren’t so creepy, I would have appreciated the taste.
“Please, take a seat.” Maxwell pointed to his couches.
The living room and kitchen were open-plan, and a terrible mess, with takeaway packets strewn on all flat surfaces and a layer of dust on the floor as if the place hadn’t been swept in a year. How could someone live in these conditions? I glanced at Maxwell who stood to the side, drumming his fingers against his thigh. None of us sat down.
“You have interesting art pieces,” I said. “Are you a collector?”
Maxwell looked at his paintings, his eyes glazing over a little as if he was taken back to another time. The man was batshit crazy. He took so long to answer that I thought he hadn’t heard me.
“I am the curator, actually,” Maxwell finally said. “Or at least, I was.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Logan and Emmerson were both very quiet. I was the only one talking. So far, Maxwell was responding which was a good sign; I wasn’t sure if he was all there.
“I was fired,” Maxwell said bitterly. I wondered if it was the reason why he was acting out but getting fired from your job was hardly a reason to turn murderous. “This world is filled with backstabbers, wouldn’t you agree, Hazel?”
I shivered when he said my name. I knew he knew who I was but it was still disconcerting. We hadn’t ever been formally introduced, he had been stalking me.
“Some people go back on their word, yes,” I said carefully, “but a lot of people are to be trusted.”
“No! They are not!” Maxwell shouted, and I jumped.
He was unpredictable, and that made him dangerous. Emmerson and Logan had both taken a step forward with Maxwell’s outburst, ready to take him down. Maxwell breathed hard, his hands balled into fists, eyes wild. I wasn’t sure he even saw Logan and Emmerson, he was staring at me as if I was the enemy.
“You’re right,” I said to appease him. “It’s difficult to find people to trust.”
Maxwell relaxed when I agreed with him.
“Do you paint?” I asked.
Maxwell laughed bitterly. His mood swings were erratic. “You’re not a painter if no one will buy paintings.”
I shook my head. “The moment you create art, you’re an artist. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”
“That easy for you to say – everyone has always recognized your work and appreciated it. My work just wasn’t good enough.”
Maxwell swept his arm around the apartment, gesturing to all the pieces against the wall and I realized he had painted them.
“But your work is very good,” I said, and I meant it. Maxwell had the ability to cover a variety of styles. It took skill to do something like that.
Maxwell sneered. “Don’t play with me. You are just like the rest of them, telling me I’m good enough, but you don’t want anything to with my art.” I shook my head, ready to respond, but he wouldn’t let me. “It’s not right that some people get everything in life and others are left to wonder why they aren’t good enough. All I’m doing is leveling the playing field.”
I blinked at Maxwell. Was he trying to stop artists from creating art because his own art wouldn’t sell? I got the idea that if no one liked his art, he would ensure there wasn’t any other art to like. It only confirmed that he had lost his mind.
“You’re leveling the playing field by killing artists,” Emmerson said.
Maxwell looked at Emmerson as if he only realized he was there now.
“Since when are you such a saint?” Maxwell asked. “Don’t tell me you’ve never killed anyone.”
Emmerson didn’t rise to the bait. He looked at Logan who nodded almost imperceptibly. They seemed to have a plan. Maxwell might have been crazy, but he picked up on the nod.
“I know you’re here to take me out,” he said, and suddenly it was pitch-dark. All the lights had gone out, and with the boarded-up windows, it was impossible to see.
Logan grabbed me from behind and yanked me back to keep me safe. I heard a scuffle, grunts and a thud.
“Emmerson,” Logan called out.
It was so dark I couldn’t see my hand before my eyes.
“He’s getting away,” I called out when the first light that bled into the room came from the front door opening and closing.
“Get the lights,” Logan said,
and I ran to the door, groping for a switch.
When I found it, I flicked it up, and the light blinked on again. Maxwell was gone, and Emmerson lay on the floor.
“Oh, my God,” I said and hurried to Emmerson.
Logan and I reached him at the same time. He lay on the floor, wheezing. His shirt was slick with blood, with blood spattering his lips when he tried to talk.
“He’s been stabbed,” Logan said and ripped Emmerson shirt open.
There were four stab wounds to his chest, scattered erratically. At least two went directly into his lungs, and one was very close to his heart. I started crying. How had everything gone so very wrong? We shouldn’t have come up here to confront Maxwell. We should have sent in the cops straight away.
“Call 911,” Logan ordered, and I pulled out my phone.
“Don’t,” Emmerson wheezed out. “Take care of Hazel – get that fucker off the streets.”
Emmerson looked like he had more to say but he started coughing, and the rasping sound was awful. Emmerson clutched at my shirt and pulled me down to him, mouthing something, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I stared at his mouth, desperately trying to make out the words when his lips stopped moving. When I looked at his eyes, they had glazed over.
“He’s gone,” Logan said.
I shook my head, unwilling to believe it. This couldn’t be. But no matter how much I told myself that Emmerson couldn’t be dead, my blood ran cold, and I had a horrible sick feeling in my stomach.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan
Earl and a team of police officers had arrived not long after Emmerson had died, but everything had been too little too late. Hazel had gone into shock, and I had taken her out of the apartment, letting the police clean up. Earl had taken my statement, but I couldn’t even remember what I had said.
We had gone to see Christopher Maxwell so I could confront him face-to-face. Instead, I had lost a good man. I should have let the police go in but my pride had been in the way, and it had cost us a life.
A month went by, and somehow life carried on. As if Emmerson’s death had been the climax of the story, everything was normal again.
Hazel was showing more and more, her body changing as the baby grew. She was beautiful, and we often took solace in each other, but it was difficult to celebrate new life pending when we had lost someone. Emmerson’s death hit me harder than I thought. At first, I was angry. I had my gang comb the streets, searching for the son of a bitch who had the nerve to attack one of my own in front of me. I was furious that Maxwell had managed to pull one over on me, that he had had a plan which trumped ours.
Despite the sorrow after Emmerson’s death, and the fear after Maxwell disappeared, the skulls and threats stopped. Slowly, carefully, artists started creating their art again. Amy was able to go to school again, and in one month it was as if nothing had happened.
It had to be the calm before the storm. It didn’t make sense that Maxwell had disappeared unless he had fled L.A. after murdering Emmerson. I hoped for his sake that was the case; if I ever found him, it was not going to be pretty.
We still hadn’t told Amy about the baby yet. Hazel and I were both shocked and grieving after Emmerson’s death, and we didn’t want to complicate things for Amy even more. We wanted to let her have a normal teenage life.
Not everything had gone back to normal – Hazel had contacted Lisa and told her to stop the show. Hazel and Amy had planned to do an art exhibition together. Even though Maxwell had disappeared and there seemed to be no more threats on the artists’ lives, Hazel had been reluctant to put her and Amy’s art out there. I didn’t blame her for her fear. She had seen Emmerson die and it wasn’t something you just got over. It wasn’t the first time I’d watched a man die, but it was for Hazel.
I hoped to God it was the last.
“How are you doing?” I asked Hazel when she arrived at my place. She hadn’t moved in yet, but she stayed over often.
“As well as can be,” Hazel answered. She smiled at me but I saw through her mask – she had dark circles under her eyes, and despite the pregnancy, she had lost weight. I was worried about her.
“How about you and Amy go out and do some tags together,” I suggested. Art had always been Hazel’s escape, her release.
Hazel shook her head. “I don’t trust the peace. Maxwell might have disappeared, but we don’t know for a fact he won’t strike again. I’m not going to do art and put the baby and Amy at risk. We have lost enough already.”
I nodded. I understood where she was coming from.
“Maybe you should find a different outlet then,” I said. “I worry about you.”
Hazel gave me a sad smile. “I’ll be alright.”
I didn’t believe her. Maybe all she needed was time. The more time that passed, though, the less likely it seemed that we would find Christopher Maxwell. I was starting to think it was all over. Maybe the loss of Emmerson’s life had been the end of it.
“Do you want to have a girls’ day out, and do your nails and your hair?” I asked. I was trying something, anything, to help Hazel relax and distract her.
But she shook her head again, refusing to leave. “Only if we can paint our nails at home while we watch a movie.”
Hazel didn’t want to leave the house unless it was necessary to go out, like going back and forth between my place and hers, or going grocery shopping. She holed herself up, hiding from the world. The only thing that I could find until now, that distracted her, was sex. It was a release, and it connected us. Even though she was sad and down all the time when we were together, the Hazel I knew and loved came back.
She often sought me out at night, and if sex were the only way I could help her, I would give her as much as she wanted. Not that I was complaining either.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hazel
I couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t get comfortable no matter how I lay, and the night was clinging to my skin as if I could touch it. I rolled over and over but my belly, which was getting bigger, felt like it was in the way. I was hot, and my hormones bothered me.
Logan was fast asleep next to me, the house quiet and dark. I should have been calm and relaxed. I should have been able to get a good night’s sleep because everything was over now. Maxwell was gone, and we were safe again. Instead, I felt irritated and on edge all the time.
I still had to get used to the mood swings that came with being pregnant. I didn’t like being up and down so much. The one moment I was happy, the next I was crying. I got irritated quickly. Tonight, my pajamas were scratchy against my skin, and I wanted to rip them off. The sheets irritated me, too.
Heat washed over my body and pooled between my legs. I was horny. It was another part of the pregnancy that I hadn’t anticipated. The urge overtook me at the strangest times, and I sought Logan out to help me. He was always there for me, and I knew it wasn’t only for my benefit.
Having sex was the one thing that distracted me from the stagnant hell we were living in where we waited for an attack from Maxwell that might never come. It distracted me. It helped me release tension and fear. And it took care of my frustrations.
I rolled over onto my side and looked at Logan. He was asleep, his long dark eyelashes on his cheeks, his breathing rhythmic. It was a pity to wake him. But I was aching for a release, the urge at the pit of my stomach growing worse and worse.
“Logan,” I whispered. I put my hand on his shoulders, and despite his deep sleep, his eyes shot open, immediately on high alert.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said.
I shifted closer to him and put my hand on his cock. He was soft with sleep. I looked him in the eye and rubbed his cock with my hand. I watched as the hunger in his gaze grew. His cock became hard under my hand, and I slid my hand up and down his shaft through his boxers, working him up. I was wet already, my pajama shorts soaked.
Logan put his hand on my neck and kissed me. His
hand went to my breast, and he massaged me. He tugged down the tank top I was wearing, so my breasts were exposed, and rolled my hardening nipples between his thumb and forefinger, driving me crazy. My nerve endings were on fire.
I pushed my hand into Logan’s boxers and jacked my hand up and down. Logan returned the favor, pushing his hands into my pants and finding my slit. He gasped when he found how wet I was. He rubbed my clit in circles, working me toward an orgasm that contracted my entire uterus and I cried out. It was something to get used to, now that I was pregnant and my belly was growing – that I felt the orgasm through my entire uterus, not only my pussy. The sensation was still foreign.
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