by Amy Faye
8
Caroline Rice was past the point where ignoring him was going to work any longer. There were other things she needed to consider, and as much as Shannen O'Brien walking through the hallways with his cock out and every muscle on his body, as well as every bruise and scrape and scar, was distracting as hell and not something that she wanted to remotely condone, she had to be an adult about it.
After all, she wasn't about to get away from him by doing anything else. If she were being realistic, if she were looking at things like an adult would, then she had to recognize that at some point, it was pointless to have a roommate to cover things like rent and food when you never collected their rent.
And if she continued to avoid him, then she was going to have to make a decision about whether or not to let him stay rent-free. Since that wasn't going to happen, not in a million years, there were other things that she had to consider instead. Like, for example, whether or not she was going to talk to him, or wait for him to bring up his rent by himself.
She'd never had any luck with waiting for things to go the way she wanted. He had been the exact same way, so far. Then again, she didn't exactly know what it was that she wanted, only that whatever it was, she wanted the hell out of it.
Her stomach twisted up in a knot and she forced her eyes shut, in spite of herself. She'd have to talk to him. It had been a week, and by now he had probably forgotten the whole thing, except for the fact that she was the one who no doubt kept reminding him.
If she didn't, then he would have ignored the entire incident, and she would have been just as happy if he had. That was really all that she wanted. Instead, he'd been looking at her with increasing interest. She wasn't a woman any more; she wasn't even a landlord, to Shannen.
She was a mountain to climb. A fight to win. He was here to take the belt from some guy that she didn't even know about, and now he apparently was going to take her 'belt,' as well, if he had his way. All because she was making herself a challenge. She was letting him under her skin, and furthermore she was letting him know about it, and that was always going to be a losing combination with a man like him.
She ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it out and loose and hoping that she didn't look like a complete psychotic. If she went to check a mirror, though, it would feel like she was actually worried what Shannen thought, and that was an entire different set of problems.
She shook her head, letting her hair fall, pushed it behind her ears, hoped again for luck that it would be enough, and then forced herself to move. Shannen O'Brien was a great many things, but he wasn't intimidating. She was a nurse, now. Or, she was almost a nurse, now, and it paid to get into the mindset before she was stuck adrift at sea with nothing to rely on but an attitude she'd utterly failed to develop.
How would Sarah have dealt with him? Firm, severe, and not an ounce of nonsense. That was how Sarah would have done it and it had to be how Caroline was going to do it because she wasn't going to let him walk all over her, no matter what he thought he was going to be able to get away with. She promised herself that, even if it didn't count for a good god damn when it came to actually doing it.
He was in his room, like he usually was. He rarely left the room except to leave the house, but that was even more true once she had let it be known that she was pissed at him, and she was intending to ignore everything about him, with every fiber of her being.
She knocked at his door and waited for him to answer. He didn't, not right away. Not the way that she'd expected, at least. He seemed to wait, as if that was somehow going to put him in a better position to throw her off-guard. As soon as she started thinking that maybe he wasn't in there after all, he answered the door. He was wearing pants this time, at least. The jeans fit tight in the thigh, but his belt was tight around his waist and made the waist of the jeans inside them scrunch up like her scrubs.
"Is something wrong?"
"It's the twenty-sixth," she said simply.
He looked at her dully for a minute, and for an instant she thought he might just have every intention of not paying, in spite of the fact that he'd been more than ready to promise to pay extra as long as she didn't try to kick him out.
Then his eyes lit up. "Oh, right. Yeah. I've got the check right here."
He turned and grabbed something from the table. True to his word, it was a check, one with her name on it, and one that had the words 'Nine Hundred Dollars and 00/100' written on it.
"Thank you," Caroline said. The surprise must have touched her voice because he looked at her impassively, as if he might have actually been offended. Nothing that Shannen had ever showed up to that point indicated that he felt anything other than pride and greed, but now he seemed downright upset that she thought he would forget.
"Yeah, right. No problem."
"Hey, I didn't mean it like that."
He shrugged and turned away, closing the door with one hand. The pose was surprisingly dynamic, she thought sourly. A man's body shouldn't be allowed to look like that, not when there were women around, trying to maintain one single ounce of their dignity and self-control.
The tiny muscles that wrapped around his ribs were surprisingly visible. They shouldn't have been, she thought. It seemed like a fighter ought to have had a little bit of fat on him. Wouldn't that have absorbed the blows a little easier? But he was careful with his food, and he the whole day at the gym, almost every day.
The days he didn't, he stayed in his room, and she could softly hear the sounds of his training even then. She shivered and put her hand on the door before it could close.
"Wait," she said. He turned and looked at her. His expression was flat and surprisingly puppy-dog-esque.
"Something else?"
"I don't mean to be a bitch," she said, and smiled hopefully. Maybe that would be enough to convince him at least for a minute that she wasn't a complete God damned psychopath. That was enough to hope for, anyways.
"I never said you were one."
"That's why I said it," Caroline said. She tried to keep up the hopeful, bashful expression and hoped that it worked on him. What she hoped that it would do, she didn't much want to think about, but she hoped it did something, anyways.
"Well, you're not a bitch. You're right to stay away from me, boss."
His words were soft, kind, even. But nothing else about him was, she thought. He looked like he was tightening up and loosening all over again every time he moved. When he moved, nothing jiggled, not even a little bit. Well... there was one thing about him that did, and she'd seen it twice now, and it occupied a much larger part of her mind than she wanted it to.
"I want to apologize anyways."
"Apology accepted," he told her, and pushed the door again.
"You want to grab something to eat tonight? I'm not loaded, so it'll have to be something, you know, easy. But I'll buy."
He looked at her for a long time. That look showed itself on his face again. That expression that he was looking at her like a mountain climber looked at the Rockies. Hungry for something that she wasn't remotely ready to tell herself to give him. Something that she was desperately afraid that she would, if she lost control of herself for an instant.
"Tonight, then," he said. She watched his jaw tighten. His eyes flicked down to look at her. She didn't enjoy it, she told herself, but that tingling feeling between her legs made the lie clear for what it was.
"Tonight. See you in a little bit, I ought to go, you know. Get ready, and stuff."
"Sure, no problem," he said. She moved her hand and he shut the door and she tried desperately not to let herself think about what a mistake she was probably making. Because if she did, she might not let herself make it.
9
The call from the cops, at least, was a surprise. There was nothing that anyone needed to talk to her about. Nothing at all, as far as Caroline was concerned. She was a nursing student, and Dad was in the hospital. If Shannen had done something, then it wasn't impossible to believe tha
t someone would come by looking for him.
But asking for her specifically, that was a surprise.
"Caroline Rice?"
The man looked like all men in uniform did; a little more attractive and a lot more impressive than maybe she should have thought they were. Knowing that she shouldn't have found it so enticing didn't change anything, and no matter how much time Caroline spent in her room, having Shannen running around, shirt or not, pants or not, was a long way past grating on her. Every moment felt like she was dangerously close to pulling a hair trigger on something that she wasn't really prepared to think too hard about.
"Yes, what's the problem, Officer?"
"You're Thomas Rice's daughter, yes?"
"That's correct," she said. Her face twisted up into a frown. Dad was fine, she assured herself. He was at the hospital. If he was starting to take a turn, then someone would have called her to tell her to come in. She hadn't missed any calls, and there was no reason to be worried. There had to be no reason. She was sure of that. Whatever he was going to say, it was obviously going to be a mistake. Right?
"Do you know of your father's business on Stark road?"
Caroline frowned. "I'm aware of it, yes; why, is there a problem?"
"I'm afraid there is, ma'am. May we come inside?"
She blinked. If they came inside, if she invited them inside, then they were free to look around. And if Shannen had done something, then there was going to be a lot of trouble for her to deal with, and all of it was going to come down on her head.
"Um. I'd rather not. Is there something I should be worried about? That shop should be closed down, Officer. I don't think that there's any trouble for it."
He took a breath and looked up at the sky, as if any moment there was going to be something coming down from it. As if he were expecting trouble at any second.
"Yeah, I hear you, ma'am. Maybe it'd be better if you just followed us. Do you have a key to the store, or no?"
"I can get one, yes."
"Alright, you had better come along with us, then. It's easier that way."
Caroline's face contorted in confusion and nervousness, in spite of herself.
"Okay, then," she agreed. It was better than nothing, she supposed. That was what she had to tell herself, anyways. Because the alternative was that she sit down and try to figure out what they were doing, and in the end she was just going to go to Dad's shoe repair place anyways to figure out why they'd come along. She could at least follow behind them in the Toyota.
"Got it," she called out. As if they were worried that she might not have, or something. The thought didn't really occur to her until she'd already said it how weird it must have sounded. By that point, the words were already out of her mouth.
"And you want me, what, to follow you to the store?"
"If that's no trouble."
She looked down at the watch on her arm. It was trouble if it took more than another two hours, before supper. But if it didn't, or she just left when it became trouble, then no, it was no trouble at all.
"I mean as long as I'm free to make my dinner date."
"We'll try not to keep you," the man said solemnly.
She nodded, pulled a jacket off the rack and stepped out through the front door, locking it behind. Shannen's sexy little coupe sat out front, though the patrol car blocked her in. She opened the garage, slipped into her car, and by the time she had it pulled halfway down the drive the cops had already cleared out for her, and were waiting a few hundred yards down the road.
She followed behind and tried to think of why anyone would be worried about Dad's shop. The whole place was shuttered up, for one thing, and for another it was just a cobbler's shop. There was no reason to break in and steal anything. Shoes were valuable, she supposed, but not other people's shoes, and not a shop that had finished all the work that had come in months and months ago, when he'd gone in.
And yet, as she followed them through the back alley and the shop finally came into view, she couldn't deny that someone had clearly done exactly that. The entire place was a mess, and one that would take days or weeks to clean up entirely, with her schedule.
The front door and front window were both shattered. It looked like someone had taken a hammer to the security shutter until it dented enough to break free of the lock at the bottom, and then they'd pulled it up and gone inside. She didn't know why it was that they needed a key until the cops lined up at the back door. Well, they could just as easily get in the front, but if they wanted to go in the clean way then she wasn't going to stop them.
The key was tight with the lock. It always had been, and it was almost unpleasant to actually use, but then again it wasn't her key. She'd never really gotten used to going in the back way, to unlocking the place, because she'd only done it a handful of times herself.
"What happened here?"
The cop who had done all the talking up to that point continued his streak. "That's what we're here to find out," he said. His voice was low and concerned, though Caroline couldn't have said whether he was more concerned about her question or about the damage of the store.
It didn't look like someone had come in to rob the place. If they had then they would have actually taken something, but as far as Caroline could tell, they hadn't. Instead, everything was on the floor, Dad's tools either smashed or, when they couldn't be smashed, embedded into the drywall.
Caroline's face dropped. Whatever had happened here, it was bad news. Very bad news. She wasn't sure that she was prepared to deal with this kind of damage, no matter what happened. She wasn't sure that anyone was. But she would have to, because when Dad finally got out, he was going to want these tools back. He'd never once taken a day off until he got into the hospital, and she suspected that he would want to pick that trend back up once he got out of the hospital.
She frowned and looked around. The damage was so complete and so startling, she thought. So much of it.
The cops waded through the stuff, layered thick on the floor almost ankle-deep. "Do you know who could have done this?"
The one in charge looked back at her with a flat expression, as the other guy started to snap photos of the scene. "There are several suspects at this point, but it's too early to say for sure, ma'am."
"I just, I don't even get it. Who would even do such a thing? What would they get out of it?"
He let out a long breath. "Sometimes it's just for fun, I guess. Teenagers, you know. They see an abandoned-looking building, they think they can get in and out before we show up to roust them, and they cause trouble as long as they can."
"You don't think that's the case this time, though?"
Something in his manner shifted a little bit at the question, like he didn't want to think too hard about it. "I can't say, ma'am."
"Can't say what?"
"It's still early," he repeated, as if it could undo the tone in his voice that had left little room for doubt over whether or not this was all the work of some teenagers. "Can't really say."
"You seemed awfully sure that it wasn't just some local neighborhood teens, though."
"I didn't say that."
"No, but it was clear from the sound of your voice."
The older cop let out a long breath, and the younger one turned. "It could have been a message," he said, filling in the blank space that was left by his partner's silence.
"A message from who?"
The older cop reacted to the question like it was a slap, and he reacted first and foremost by looking at his younger partner with an accusatory look.
"Like I said, it's early days, yet. We can't know anything for sure, so it's useless to speculate."
"But if you had to guess, then..."
The younger cop spoke up this time, again. She was starting to like him; at least he answered questions. "Coogan and his gang," he said. The look that the older cop gave him was enough to shut him up, but the answer was already out.
'Coogan' wasn't a name that she'd heard before, wh
ich meant that Caroline was going to have to play catch up.
10
Caroline sat at the table and tried to pretend against all hope that she wasn't distracted. Shannen eyed her like he usually did, and she knew that there wasn't going to be any way she could lie to him, not with the way that his eyes seemed to be able to see right through her. The way that he seemed to be able to constantly know when she was lying or hiding something.
The whole thing was strange to her. 'Gang,' they'd said. What did Dad have anything to do with a gang?
"Are you apologizing for ignoring me, or taunting me that you can keep it up as long as possible?" Shannen's words sounded offended; his voice didn't.
She looked up, surprised that he'd spoken. "I'm not ignoring you," she lied.
"Is this about that visit from the cops? What'd you do, fail to file your official papers when you donated to the poor?"
"Someone broke into my Dad's shop."
"Oh yeah? What's the old man do?"
"Right now he's in the hospital. The shop is closed."
"So he didn't get hurt, at least. That's good, right?"
"It would be better if I knew what the heck they had even done it for. I can't understand for the life of me why anyone would break into a shoe repair place."
Shannen shrugged. "All kinds of reasons, I guess. Maybe there was some spy shit in one of the shoes."
"He'd already sent out all the orders that had come in before he got sick. He did it like it was some kind of rite of passing, like he knew he was going to be in the hospital a while."
Shannen's expression was pained. "The cops say they knew anything?"
"One of them said it might be a gang," she offered. "Coogan-something?"
Shannen looked at her as if she'd just spoken complete gibberish, but he didn't refuse to believe her, which was at least better than the alternative. "I'm sure they're just guessing, though."