Cat 'N Mouse

by Yvonne Harriott

  Oh, she was angry. Angry at herself for initiating something she knew wouldn’t go anywhere. Angry because he rejected her for the umpteenth time and she wasn’t going to let him off the hook without an explanation. Maybe there was someone else.

  “Don’t make this harder than it is.”

  “Oh, so you’re not made of stone after all?”

  “Don’t do this.” His voice sounded strain.

  Frustrated she asked, “Why? I know you want me and I want you. What’s the problem?”

  “I’m here to protect you. We need to keep our relationship on a professional level.” His reasoning was not in line with his explanation. His muscles were taut and tense.

  “Oh, I think we’re beyond that, don’t you?”

  The phone started to ring. She grabbed the cordless. “Hello?”

  She heard heavy breathing on the other end of the line, then silence. Laughter followed and she exploded.

  “You think you’re so tough hiding behind the phone. You know where I live. Why don’t you come and get me? And I’m not talking about crawling in like the cockroach you are when I’m not at home. I’m talking about showing your face!”

  Silence.

  “I don’t think you can. Want to know why?”

  Silence.

  “Because you’re a coward!”

  She slammed the phone down on the counter and Sam rushed to her side.

  “Alex—”

  “No. Leave me alone.”

  • • •

  Coward?

  Cockroach?

  It was because of O’Malley why she called him a coward. She had to learn to respect him, and she would with her bodyguard out of the way. O’Malley had to go because that would be the only way she would respect him.

  He thought he could see her at the Foundation yesterday, but he couldn’t get within a foot of her because O’Malley was there. He shook with anger. The man must die. It was the only way he can be with his Princess.

  His cellphone rang and he ignored it. He knew who it was. He didn’t take orders from anyone anymore.

  Since Alexandria didn’t love him anymore then she had to die. Perhaps he should give her one more chance.

  She could change. She might change and love him again, but not as long as O’Malley was in the picture.

  • • •

  Sam pulled into the parking lot at Robyn’s Nest two hours later. He didn’t release the child security locks. That’s one feature he liked. Alexandria couldn’t leave until he was ready. He’d gotten the silent treatment since the creep called.

  He had to be missing something, but what? The man always called when he and Alexandria were in the middle of something. The first call came after she found the iguana then when they were in the middle of an argument. It was as though the creep was trying to keep them apart. Sam didn’t need any help in that department. He was doing fine on his own.

  His observations led to more questions. Especially about this latest call. Did the man say something that could identify him? The only way to determine that was to get Alexandria to talk to him about it. That was like trying to draw water from a stone, but it needed to be done, even if she didn’t want to talk to him about it.

  “Tell me about the call this morning.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I told you. He started breathing hard then ended up laughing and I lost it.” She pulled at the door handle, and then sat back in her seat, staring straight ahead.

  “Fine. Let’s talk about what happened between us this morning.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I know the rules. Number one: I stay on the third floor. Number two: Inform you if I need to go between floors. Number three: Inform you when I need to go the powder room, and Number four: You are off limits so you can do your job without distractions. Are there any other rules I should be aware of?”

  She was angry and it was his fault. For a moment he thought of telling her it had nothing to do with her. It was him and his messed up life. He couldn’t take an aspirin without wondering if he would fall back in that dark hole again. And the biggest deal buster of all, he couldn’t keep her in the lifestyle she was accustomed to. He racked his brain trying to find the right words that would make the awkwardness between them go away. Nothing came. At least nothing he thought she wanted to hear.

  “I didn’t think so. Open the door.”

  Sam unlocked the doors and Alexandria got out of the vehicle and started toward the building. He had to hurry to catch up with her.

  Something was wrong. Sam felt it immediately as they stepped off the elevator on the third floor. Robyn had her arm around Mr. Robinson’s shoulder as the man sobbed outside Tiana’s room.

  “Robyn?” Alexandria’s demeanor changed and she ran toward them. “What’s wrong?”

  Sam knew Tiana had died. He didn’t need anyone to tell him that.

  “Tiana’s infection progressed to fatal pneumonia,” Robyn said. Her eyes were red and she sniffled.

  “Can I see her?”

  “No. She’s—” Alexandria pushed toward Tiana’s room. Robyn looked at Sam and shook her head, her eyes pleading silently asking for his help.

  Alexandria, let’s get—”

  “Don’t…” Alexandria said, but Sam held onto her arm preventing her from entering the room. When she looked beyond Robyn’s shoulder and saw the body of the little girl all covered up with a white sheet, she pulled out of his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” Robyn said, sadness filled her voice. “Tiana died early this morning.”

  “You should’ve called me.”

  “Sweetie—”

  “You should’ve called!”

  • • •

  Pain.

  It surrounded Alexandria and she couldn’t breath. Her head started to spin. Tiana’s smiling face appeared before her. She had promised the little girl that she would get better and fulfill her dreams. She had no right to make such a promise, but she did. Death cheated Tiana out of her dreams, just like it snatched her mother away.

  Her mother’s face appeared before her, lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. Alexandria broke away from Sam and ran into the stairwell. She didn’t stop until she got to the sixth floor then collapsed against the railing sliding down on the cement steps sobbing.

  In the distance she heard voices. Sam’s mostly, ordering someone to the door of the sixth floor and not to let anyone into the stairwell. Footsteps echoed up the stairs toward her, but she didn’t look up. Her head rested on her arms folded across her knees.

  “I just want to sit with you,” Robyn said and sat down next to her in silence. That was good because Alexandria didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to go home either. Robyn knew this and as a great friend, she let her cry, then cried with her.

  The day flew by in a blur. Most of the morning she’d spent in the stairwell until Sam told her, or rather ordered her, to get some lunch in the cafeteria. In the afternoon she sat with Tiana’s father in the family lounge on the third floor staring out the window.

  Sam came to the lounge at four o’clock and told her it was time they left. She couldn’t leave, not until Mr. Robinson left the Foundation. That didn’t happen until ten o’clock that night. She was ready to go half an hour later.

  The twenty-minute ride home seemed to take forever. Usually Sam drove like an Indy race car driver but tonight he took his time. Silence stretched out between them like miles of desert sand. No one volunteered to break the silence.

  When they arrived at the condo she headed straight for her room. Her sanctuary.

  “You’ll feel better if you talk about it.”

  “With who, you?”

  Sam snagged her arm just below her elbow, cutting off her quick escape to her bedroom. They stood there staring at each other. The simple touch made her skin burn sending heat up her arm radiating through her body. The attraction she felt for him was stronger than anything she had ever felt before. She’d never felt that for anyone. Not eve
n Damien.

  At that moment she wanted Sam to hold her, to forget that she was Alexandria Prescott and to make love to her. But it wasn’t going to happen for he dropped his hand. He was afraid. Afraid of what she wasn’t entirely sure.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I want to,” he confessed. “But—”

  “You’re the hired hand. How could I forget when you keep reminding me,” she said bitterly.

  “We’re in the middle of a nightmare, Alexandria. With all the attempts on your life I think we need to stay focused. Anything beyond that would complicate things.”

  She didn’t buy that whole argument. He was hiding behind his job. A job he didn’t even want to begin with.

  “Focus bull,” she challenged. “What about what’s happening between us? I feel like I’m always fighting with you emotionally and you’re fighting with yourself.”

  He stared at her stoned face, jaws clenched shutting her out.

  “I can’t win with you, can I? What if I didn’t have money? Would it make a difference?” He looked toward the solarium. “Say something. Tell me you’re feeling something…that it’s not just me.”

  Alexandria was a step away from falling apart. She needed him not another rejection.

  “I’m sorry about Tiana.”

  “Me too,” she said and left him standing in the living room.

  Tiana was gone.

  Alexandria sat on the bed in her room, waiting for the tears to come, but none came. She felt hollow and empty inside. Her cellphone rang and she reached for it without even thinking or feeling.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, sweetheart. I’m back in town. Want to meet me for a drink?”

  Damien Walker.

  They were together for two years. He had dreams of changing the world. They were going to do it together. He disappeared with not even so much as a goodbye the day after he’d promised her she could travel the world with him. He was supposed to take her away from her life, her father.

  When they first met, he was an intern at her father’s company. Then he got a better job offer. She thought that…

  “Baby, are you still there?”

  “You left.” Alexandria stared out the window, listening to the beat of the music in the background. Tittering on the brink of an emotional meltdown, she forced herself to remain calm. “You left. I loved you and you left me,” she said blinking back the tears.

  “I’m at Elusions Night Club. Meet me, please. We need to talk. I’ll tell you everything even why I left.”

  Tiana was dead. Her mother was dead. Someone wanted her dead and if he succeeded, then she would be as well. Sam was there to prevent that and she believed him. He had proven that he could. But she wanted more from him, more than he was willing to give. When he found the stalker, he would leave. He said so.

  Damien was back. He wanted to see her and she would go to him.

  “I’m on my way.”

  • • •

  Sam parked a block away because that was the closest spot he could find. He jumped out of the SUV and ran across the street. He heard the music before he saw the club, a large warehouse type structure. A line up still snaked around the building even at one o’clock in the morning.

  Suppressing his anger, he approached the door, bypassing the roped off area behind the line. She shouldn’t have gotten out. He was too busy trying to figure out how to take what he wanted without the consequence. They were both two consenting adults and she knew what she wanted. Hell, she kept offering. Why not? That was how he’d justified it when he’d stepped out of the shower.

  He heard the front door open but by the time he’d stepped into his jeans and pulled a T-shirt over his head, she was gone. If it weren’t for the doorman who had hailed her a cab, Sam wouldn’t have known her destination.

  “Hey, back of the line,” someone yelled as he headed for the front door.

  “Hey, buddy, the line starts back there,” a barrel-chested man, he pegged for the bouncer, yelled at him.

  “I’m sure half of these ladies in line are not old enough to be here. What about inside? What would I find inside? I’m guessing liquor being served to minors, prostitution and drugs.”

  “What are you, a cop or something?”

  “And if I was a cop?” Sam didn’t have to pretend to be mean. It oozed out of him without even trying. All he could think of was Alexandria. What if something happened to her?

  “What do you want?” The bouncer looked around quickly as if he was about to bolt. If a raid came down he knew he would be busted, along with the owner. It didn’t look like he wanted that kind of trouble. Sam used that to his advantage.

  “I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I need to find someone and I may need some help to get her out. That’s it,” Sam said.

  The man stared at him as if trying to decide if he was on the level. Common sense prevailed, and he lifted the red rope that stretched across the entrance.

  “Hey, come on. We’ve been waiting for an hour,” someone yelled.

  “Where’s the back entrance to this place?” Sam asked.

  “Near the washrooms at the back after you pass the bar. Security has to open it.”

  “Meet me there in ten minutes and I’ll make it worth your while,” Sam said.

  He stepped through the door where a glass waterfall separated the entrance of the club and the dance floor. A wave of heat washed over him. The music pulsed. Lights of every color flashed to the beat of the music, and scantly clad bodies gyrated against each other on the dance floor. He stopped a woman wearing a black leather bustier with a micro mini skirt and stilettoed thigh-high boots carrying a drink tray. Wise? He didn’t think so, but who asked him.

  “Alexandria Prescott’s table?” Sam figured she had to have some kind of private booth with her party. Isn’t that what rich people do when they didn’t want to rub elbows with the common folks.

  “V.I.P. section, up the stairs.”

  Sam pushed his way across the dance floor toward the narrow staircase guarded by a three hundred pound, six foot sumo wrestler. The story that he’d used to get by the front door didn’t work with wrestler man.

  “Nobody is allowed up there unless they get permission.” He pointed a thick finger up the stairs.

  “Well, that’s a problem because I’m going up.”

  “You’ll have to get by—” Wrestler man howled in pain dropping to the floor like a stone, clutching his right knee. No one noticed the fallen giant because the music pulsed right on, drowning out his cry. Sam stepped over the man taking the stairs two at a time.

  He hit the top of the stairs and lost his breathe when he saw Alexandria sliding into the booth. A one-shoulder black-laced getup that you could damn nearly see through draped over her body, or at least tried to. It was held together by two pink bows at the side, her right leg bare all the way up to her thigh. Some guy who looked like he’d walked off the cover of some fancy magazine, slid in right next to her, his hands all over her.

  Jealousy raced across his mind like wild fire, desire trumped it, but anger won out hands down as he marched toward the booth.

  • • •

  Alexandria’s head hurt with every pulsating beat of the music. Conversation was futile, yet Damien’s friends, a Ken and Barbie couple, insisted on shouting at each other. She paid no attention when Damien introduced the other couple, the football player and his anorexic girlfriend. He and his girlfriend were too busy exchanging saliva to be bothered with the rest of them at the table.

  She paid no attention to anyone and kept vigilant declining any drink offers from Damien. Paranoia didn’t begin to cover how she felt. She stared into the face of every person she encountered, wondering if they were the stalker. At one point, she actually thought about calling Sam to come and get her.

  This was stupid, really stupid, and she didn’t even want to think of how mad Sam would be when he discovered she’d snuck out.

  For a brief moment she pushed Sam
to the back of her mind staring at Damien. He was tall and handsome in a male model kinda way. His tanned face was smooth, hairless, and flawless.

  She’d thought he was the pillar of her universe. All he talked about was himself. At no point did he even ask what was going on in her life. It didn’t make sense to tell him about Tiana or the stalker. Had he always been this shallow and self-absorbing? Seeing Damien again was like looking at herself in the mirror for the first time, and she didn’t like what she saw.

  He hadn’t changed. She listened to him talking about his business ventures around the world and where he was going next. It sounded like he was asking her to join him this time, but it wasn’t clear.

  Damien had to work at it to keep his model persona. He had to hit the gym three hours a day, seven days a week. At least that’s how it was when they were together. Sam was very different from Damien. He was rugged and masculine. There were no moisturizers or manicures for Sam. As a matter of fact, she didn’t think he would be caught dead in a nail salon or spa. He was one hundred percent pure male and would definitely make her toes curl, of that she—

  “Let’s go, Princess.”

  Alexandria stiffened when she heard Sam’s voice and turned slowly around. Damien’s arm tightened around her shoulder.

  “I’m not ready yet,” she said, with more bravado than she felt. The muscle in Sam’s jaw jumped and she turned her back to him.

  “Get lost.” Damien stood up, pointing a finger in Sam’s face. Sam slapped it away and Damien swung at him.

  Sam grabbed his hand, twisting it at the wrist and Damien dropped back in the booth, rubbing his wrist.

  Mad didn’t begin to cover the emotion Alexandria saw on Sam’s face. His eyes blazed with anger. When the football player got up in defense of Damien, a mere look from Sam had him shrinking in his seat.

  She remained seated as a dance mix of Eddie Grant’s song Electric Avenue pounded through the speakers, and the crowd erupted with a scream.

  “Come,” Sam called, his hands beckoning her forward. “Either you walk or I carry you, Princess, your choice.”

  He meant every word. They all knew it. Damien stood up allowing Alexandria to slide out of the booth like an obedient child. As they were walking away from the table heading down the stairs, she saw a white flash and knew it wasn’t any of the lights from the dance floor. She knew the difference and wanted to warn him.