by Hamel, B. B.
“And you’re not dead.”
“It didn’t go the way they wanted, although I have a feeling they were only sent to hurt me, not kill me.”
“Still, I’ve seen the sort of shit they do. They’re not the kind of guys to take things halfway.”
“This is proof, right?”
He hesitated. “You got evidence of that?”
“Curt—”
“I’m sorry man, I’m just telling you the truth here. If you don’t have evidence, and it’s your word against theirs, then it won’t fly. But if you’ve got proof, you know, a hospital report from that night, a police report, CCTV footage, a fucking picture on your phone, anything, then I could leverage that.”
“Goddamn it.” I leaned my head back. “I didn’t go to the hospital. I didn’t call the police.”
“Then I can’t do a thing for you.”
I sucked in a breath and let it out. There was a chance, but it felt so slim as to be nonexistent. Maria was going down, but I wanted it to be sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to wait, and I didn’t want her to keep living her life while I was fucked and fired.
There had to be a way. There was always a way.
I slipped out of the booth and stood. “I’ll get you proof.”
“I hope you do,” he said. “I mean, I hope you do it without getting hurt again.”
I shook his hand. “Keep your phone handy. You’ll be hearing from me soon.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and walked off, mind reeling through a list of possibilities. None of them were good, but then again, the alternative sucked just as much.
Ultimately though, I knew this would involve provoking another fight. I walked down the packed morning rush hour side walk and took out my phone. I dialed up the hospital and had them connect me to Maria’s office, which rang and rang, before her secretary answered and put me on hold. I wandered the sidewalk, gazed at some creeping spurge clawing its way from between a crack, admired the knotweed that grew alongside it in long twisted strands, urban grasses trying to survive in this fetid place, before Maria finally picked up.
“What do you want, Dr. Coarse?” she asked, sounding put out.
“Hello, Maria. How are you doing?”
“I don’t have time for this. I have a meeting in two minutes.”
“Then I’ll be quick. I have proof that you’ve been laundering money by taking fake donations and buying fake products from fake mafia-owned shell companies, and I’m going to make sure you get burned for it.”
She was quiet for a few seconds. “I don’t think so, Dr. Coarse. I know you’re desperate to save your job, but I don’t think you have anything.”
“Try me then. I’m taking it to my lawyer tomorrow and I’m giving you one day to change your mind and hire me back on staff.”
“Good bye, Dr. Coarse. This is pathetic, even for you.”
She hung up, but I leaned up against a jeweler’s window and smiled as I pushed the phone into my pocket. The trap was set, the bait dangled out, and all she had to do was be herself—and take it.
25
Fiona
“Your plan is insane. You realize that, right?”
Dean shrugged and spread his hands. “I know, but it’s the best plan I have, and it’s sort of too late already.”
I leaned back on his couch and put my feet in his lap. It was the middle of the day, and it was my first day off in a month. It felt good, lounging around with nothing to do, and although the news of his little meeting with his lawyer friend wasn’t exactly great, I still had a hard time feeling down.
For the first time in forever, I felt like I’d found something I wanted to keep.
“I’m not sure I can be a part of it.”
“It’s probably better if you’re not, but it would help.”
I laughed and kicked him in the stomach. He grunted and pretended like it hurt.
“You’re going to get killed.”
“That’s sort of the idea, you know, minus actually dying.”
“They’re going to kill you. I hope you know that.”
“Do you know where I can get a bulletproof vest?”
“Nope. No clue.”
He shrugged again, actually shrugged in the face of death. “Then I guess we’ll have to hope they’re bad shots.”
I sat up straight and looked at him for a few seconds, my anger pulsing in the back of my mind. I felt like he had given me something good, something real and right, and now he was talking about taking it back.
But I knew that wasn’t really the case. He had a plan, and he was sticking to it, whether I liked it or not. That was Dean, and even if it annoyed the crap out of me, I had to admire it too.
“All right, fine. I’ll play along.”
“Perfect.” He sucked in a breath then let it out. “So the plan is we sit around inside all day, you get naked, you let me do all the nasty things I’ve been imagining, and then I go and get in a fight.”
“And you don’t die.”
“Right, I don’t die.”
“Got it. I have one problem with that plan.”
“What’s that?” He frowned a little, tilting his head.
“I don’t want to get naked.”
“That’s a huge disappointment.”
I stood up and stretched, getting up on my toes and arching my back. I saw the way he looked at me, letting his eyes roam down my body, and I really, really liked it.
“But maybe you’ll get naked for me.”
He laughed. “I’m not that easy, you know.”
“Oh, I think you are.” I leaned down and put my hands on his knees, then kissed him. “I really, really think you are.” I moved forward and straddled him, moving my ass down against him.
We kissed for a while then, and I kept thinking about this stupid plan, about the huge risk he was taking, but I also knew why. He wanted his job back, of course, but he also wanted to protect me.
I was on the chopping block next. Maria took him down, and she’d take me down sooner or later. I might be a little harder to get rid of without a good reason, since I was a member of the nurses’ union in good standing, and they’d have my back if Maria tried to throw me out for clearly trumped-up bullshit. But regardless, she’d watch me like a hawk and find something to use against me, unless Dean acted now and got rid of her.
I didn’t love the idea of him risking his life for me, and it helped that it wasn’t entirely for my sake alone—but still, I didn’t want him to go out there and get hurt. The plan essentially relied on Maria making an aggressive move to stop him from dragging her down, even though he’d already given over his proof, this was only to speed things up.
If he was going to make a stupid mistake and get himself hurt, then I was going to get my fill of him first. So I kissed him, ground back down against him, and let him have his way with me—again and again, because that was what I needed, even if I was terrified that it might never happen again.
* * *
He waited until after dark before he put on comfortable clothes and shoved a bunch of blank printer paper into a backpack.
“That doesn’t look suspicious at all,” I said.
He shrugged and threw it over his shoulders. “Doesn’t have to look good. They’re not going to question it.”
“Come on, seriously? They’re not stupid.”
He arched an eyebrow. “They’re thugs, Fi. Of course they’re a little stupid.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “All right, fine, whatever. What’s the plan again?”
“It’s easy. You follow at a distance and have your phone ready. When the assholes jump me, which I think will be pretty soon after I leave the house, you start filming. If I’m about to die, run and get help.”
“You’re crazy.”
He walked to me and pressed his lips against mine, kissing me slow and deep. “I know I am,” he said. “But I want this to be done. I don’t want it hanging over
our heads forever. You have a life to live.”
“And you want your job back.”
He smirked. “That too.”
“All right then. You’d better get out there. No more distracting yourself with me.”
“Maybe I could use one more distraction.”
“I didn’t think you were physically capable of it.”
“You’d be surprised what I’m capable of.”
I smiled and kissed his chin and wanted to beg him to stop, wanted to beg him to stay inside and pretend like none of this ever happened with me—and was almost tempted to strip down then and there to distract him from what he was about to do. Instead, he walked to the door, took a deep breath, and stepped outside without looking back.
If only he’d looked back, I would’ve begged him to stay. Maybe that’s why he didn’t.
I waited thirty seconds, then followed, phone clutched in my hand. He was halfway down the block by the time I stepped down the stoop—and two shadows were on his trail.
I cursed and crossed the street, then stayed as far back as I could without being seen. He walked down several quiet streets, but the two men following him didn’t get closer. Dean paused a few times, waiting around dead quiet buildings, but nothing happened. I felt my pulse racing, and I wanted to scream, and part of me thought they’d never make a move—
Until he turned a corner and cut through an empty parking lot.
One of the two guys jogged off to the right, skirting around the fence, while the other followed behind Dean. I crouched behind a car, my heart in my throat, but I raised my phone up as Dean nearly reached the end of the lot before stopping. It was Aldo, the short bald one, I realized, as he stepped into the light. Dean took a few steps back and held his hands up in the air.
I couldn’t see a gun. The second, skinny guy named Davide stood behind Dean at a distance.
I wished I could hear their conversation. I saw Dean take off his backpack and drop it on the ground. Aldo said something, stepped closer, but Dean didn’t move. Davide moved closer, and I knew they were going to get violent, I could feel it in the air, an electricity on the top of my tongue, like static on my arms. I tried not to scream, tried not to do anything but keep the phone steady and filming.
I got it all. I got every second of it, and even moved closer, hiding behind a tree as I filmed Aldo attack Dean, and Davide hit him from behind. He fought them as hard as he could, left Aldo’s nose bleeding, and Davide slumped back on the ground, but Aldo got in a cheap shot, knocked him to the pavement, and kicked him several times in the ribs. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks as Dean took the beating, curling up into a defensive posture.
I heard a shout and Aldo pulled back. A man wearing a security guard outfit jogged down the sidewalk toward them. I stopped filming, put my phone away, and ran to Dean as Aldo pulled Davide away, the two men escaping.
I reached Dean just as the other guard appeared. The security guard was overweight, pale skin, red hair, and looked around wildly. “What the fuck was that?” he asked. “Is that guy dead?”
I knelt down next to Dean. “I’m a nurse. Call an ambulance.”
Dean looked at me and smiled. His nose was bloody, and he had blood in his mouth. “You got it?”
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t talk. You might have internal bleeding.”
“Take me anywhere but Mercy.” He laughed, then grimaced.
I stared at the security guard, who wasn’t moving. “Call a fucking ambulance, you asshole.”
That snapped him out of it. I did my best to make Dean comfortable with what little I had until the ambulance arrived, and after that, it was out of my hands.
26
Dean
I’d gotten my ass kicked before.
When I was a kid, my dad regularly hit me. Sometimes, he’d go too far, and he’d leave visible bruises.
But he never tried to kill me, never tried to break bones.
Aldo tried to break bones. Aldo wanted to murder me there in the street, and I was pretty sure he would have if not for that totally freaked out security guard that broke up the fight.
Jackson Hospital was across the city from Mercy, but Fiona convinced them to take me there. I lay on the uncomfortable bed, every breath a painful reminder that I’m a complete asshole, as Fiona paced around the room. I had to admit, the place was pretty nice, although the floors were stained a strange, sooty-gray color, and the sheets were insanely scratchy. Otherwise, it was the same wood and plaster decorations as at any other urban hospital in the country.
“Would you sit down?”
She shook her head. “You nearly died out there.”
“No kidding.” I grimaced then raised my hands. “But I’m alive.”
“Dean—”
“Come on, sit down, you’re making me nervous.”
She chewed on a piece of hair then sighed, frustrated, and sat down in the red-upholstered plastic chair. She leaned back, crossed her legs and arms, and glared at me.
“This sucks,” she said. “This really sucks.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said.
“I had to watch you almost get killed, you realize that, right? We just found each other, and you’re getting yourself killed.”
I raised an eyebrow at her, and her face turned red as she realized what she said, but I decided not to push her on it. She could only take so much before she tried to kill me herself.
“I know that was hard,” I said softly, because talking too loud hurt. I had several broken ribs and some very minor internal bleeding, but the doctors didn’t think I’d need surgery, which was a miracle. My knees hurt, my arms hurt, and my fists were smashed open—but I was alive, and I would heal, probably without any lasting damage.
All in all, the plan went perfectly.
“It was really hard.”
“But we did it. You got the video, right?”
“I got the video.”
“Send it to me, and I’ll email it to Curt.” I leaned over, grabbed my phone from the side table with a grunt of pain, and held it up.
She narrowed her eyes. “Right now?”
“Right now.” It’d been a few hours since the fight, and I wanted to get out ahead of this as fast as we could. Maria would know about what happened, and she probably thought that would be enough to keep me off her back for a while.
I wanted to surprise her.
Fiona typed on her phone and sent the video through. I saved it then emailed it to Curt, along with a short note. Take a look at this. I bet your fed pals will recognize those two guys. I’m currently at Jackson Hospital, but I’m OK. Get to work.
She watched me the whole time, and even though she was showing anger, I knew she was worried. I shouldn’t have put her through that, but then again, I was the one that got my ass kicked. I reached out and took her hand, and for a second, I thought she might pull away, but then she leaned forward and kissed me. I kissed her back, slightly surprised that she was willing to do this in semi-public, but not questioning it.
A man cleared his throat. Fiona pulled back, blushing. My doctor stood in the doorway, a man named Dr. Heckler that I’d met once or twice at conferences, a nice enough guy.
“Dr. Coarse. How are you feeling?”
“Better now, thanks.”
He smiled a bit, looking over his glasses at my chart. “Looks like your imaging came back good. I’ll have someone else take a look to double-check, make sure there won’t be any surprises, but you seem to be in pretty good shape for a guy that got jumped.”
“Thanks, you know, I try.”
“I’m curious, why didn’t you go to Mercy? I think that was closer, but the ambulance guys said you wanted to come here.”
“I’m too well-known at Mercy,” I said, grinning. “Plus, they canned my ass, so fuck them.”
He raised his eyebrows, glanced at Fiona, then back at me. I realized he must figure it was because of her that I got fired, but whatever, let them gossip. I was done with that, done
with the whole damn thing.
I’d taken enough abuse. It was time to finish this.
“Well then, you’ll stay overnight, and in the morning we’ll see how you’re feeling. Sound good?”
“I’ll tell you right now, I’m going to feel awful in the morning, but I’m going home.”
He smiled. “I bet you are. Have a good night. I’ll check on you later.” He nodded to Fiona then left.
“That guy’s going to tell everyone in here that you got fired because you’re banging me,” she said.
I laughed then groaned. “Don’t be funny. Not right now.”
“It’s worth it though,” she said, leaning toward me.
“What is?”
“Banging me.”
I grinned, kissed her, and nodded. “Goddamn right it is.”
She kissed me again, deeper this time, and I briefly wondered if she could fit in the bed with me, and maybe I could try a little something— but my phone started ringing, and Curt’s name showed up on the screen.
“Hey, buddy,” I said.
“Holy shit, are you okay?”
“I’m alive.”
“I watched that video. Dude, where did you learn to fight like that?”
I smiled and closed my eyes. “Long story. But what do you think?”
“Looks like imminent danger to me.” He paused for a long moment. “You didn’t… instigate that, did you?”
“I might’ve warned Maria that I had the goods on her.”
He sighed loudly. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Sorry, bud. I know it’ll make things a little harder, but I needed this. I couldn’t wait.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well look, even I recognize that little bald fucker. He’s a real sick one, did you know that? Aldo, I don’t know his last name. He’s a suspect on more than a few murder cases.”
“And now you’ll get him for assault.”
“Among other things. I’ll forward that video along. Expect to hear from the investigators tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Get some rest, bud. Looks like you need it.”