by A. J. Lape
The holidays at my home were bittersweet. Sure we were happy, but ache tugged at my heart when I thought about the empty chair at dinnertime. I tried to be emotionally numb and go through the motions, but it didn’t always work.
I felt everything…
After two 360s around the store, I parked my RipStik next to the space heater. The Double-B felt colder than the Klondike. Mr. B had bought a heater at Costco that threw off enough BTUs to fry an egg, but the heat still hadn’t reached my bones. Taking a second to warm my hands, I swiped the countertop one last time, scooting the breadcrumbs into my palm, tossing them in the trash.
I was tired…not just physically, but mentally.
In my brief life, I’d been shot at, shoved into the trunk of a car, had a knife pushed up against my carotid, not to mention seen dead bodies and appendages without torsos. Yes, I felt old. Just thinking about the things I’d experienced made me ponder the loose ends in my life. The biggest being my quest to find the man who’d shoved me into the trunk of his car (more on that later).
Right then, my cell phone vibrated, millimeters from teetering off the counter. A look at the screen showed the brooding mug of one of my besties, Jon Bradshaw. My hands were so cold the screen on my iPhone didn’t recognize me as Homo sapiens. I waved my index finger all over it like an idiot, giving up and using my nose.
I hit the intercom, mumbling, “Speak.”
“I need a girlfriend…STAT,” he grumbled. “But you have to keep the desperation on the DL.”
I rolled my eyes so hard they nearly fell out of my head. Every time he called, I heard a Taylor Swift song playing in my brain. His relationships never went anywhere, and then I was doomed to hear of their demise anytime he opened his mouth. “Give it up, bud,” I laughed. “No one is dumb enough to consider you their HEA.”
“HEA?” he repeated, confused.
“Happily ever after, you moron.”
“Come on, Walker. I’m as single as a dollar bill and tired of it.”
“You’re preachin’ to the choir, bud. You’re preachin’ to the choir.”
“Then show a brother some love.”
I’d rather snag him with a cattle prod, but I’m thinking that was illegal.
Nicknamed “Grumpy” because the guy never smiled, he was one of my closest friends and inducted first into my top-secret Brotherhood. He’d become extra clingy in the past four months. Well, clingy for him since he was the emotional equivalent of a wet towel. Why the extra need? He and I almost died in a car crash on the first day of school, both of us spit out through the passenger side window and windshield respectively. In fact, let’s make things simple. Grumpy did die in the ambulance; they jumpstarted his heart, and he didn’t once see the light (cough, Hell bound, cough). All he remembered was a big, black hole of nothingness when he woke up with a broken nose, arm, and facial lacerations. Maybe that’s why I put up with his woe-is-me sob stories. It was my opinion he had bigger problems than not being able to land a significant other.
As if I should be anyone’s spiritual advisor.
After a few sures and okays, I took a timeout from the convo and touched the three-inch scar on the back of my head. My head had been shaved, and the ER doc was kind enough to buzz a lightning bolt into my scalp before he stapled me shut. The scar hadn’t healed nice and flat. It was a rigid bump that’d be there for the rest of my life.
When I catapulted through the windshield, I landed spread eagle on my back on the pavement. My head split in two with the force. It didn’t especially hurt which clued me in I was in bad shape. As I drifted in and out of consciousness, the man who hit us hovered overtop me, and that’s when I deduced he was the crony of Turkey Cardoza, a mobster associated with my best friend’s detective grandfather. He’d struck the Suburban we rode in on purpose. After initial impact, our SUV skidded into oncoming traffic and looked like an accordion, coming to rest between two cars.
Grumpy and I were the worse for wear. Finn Lively, who’d been in the backseat, had a slight concussion (a fact I attributed to him wearing my lucky hat), and Dylan Taylor, my best friend, had a few bruised ribs, a black eye, and a cut in his hairline complements of the only airbag that’d deployed. Later, authorities discovered the rest had been deactivated—the second clue someone attempted to manipulate our lifespan. Dylan’s grandfather was still hellbent on bringing Cardoza to justice.
It hadn’t happened yet.
The accident still caused me problems, especially with my best friend. I could be one hundred years old with dementia and never forget the sound of Dylan’s head hitting the steering wheel. The horn’s continuous beep still rang in my nightmares. I lay there and thought he’d died. You see, my hands weren’t completely clean. I’d meddled in his grandfather’s work, and even though Dylan and his grandfather adamantly claimed “a detective’s family always has a target on them,” I considered that an elementary summary of the situation. Dylan, Grumpy, and Finn might not have entered the picture of possible victims if I hadn’t involved myself—or the Fates hadn’t involved me. While I was chasing my latest obsession, I had a chance encounter with the Cardoza crime family gunning for Lincoln Taylor. Had I been the intended target during our car crash? If I’d minded my own business, it wouldn’t be a consideration. But such is the bane of being a verb: you acted first and considered ramifications later.
Guilt was a killer…
And I’d found myself pulling away from Dylan.
Problem was, at the time of the accident, Dylan had resurrected a conversation about us becoming a couple…as in couple-couple…or best friends dating. Can you say, Friendship wrecking ball? Our relationship had evolved through four stages: best friends, flirting, him acknowledging his true feelings, and then me running like an illegal immigrant across the U.S. Border.
Ahhhh, Dylan. We were almost a couple…almost.
I blew that, people. I blew that love boat right out of the water despite the fact he’d given me the hottest, most toe-curling first kiss imaginable. In fact, up until then my girl parts had never experienced a single jolt of pleasure. I’d all but convinced myself I was asexual, needing hormone rehab.
I stupidly recapped the kiss amongst Grumpy’s incessant rambling.
The setting was Orlando, on vacation. I’d snuck into Dylan’s bedroom for a late night chat. There were a few whispered words, but before I could say, Hold on lover boy, his lips found mine—slowly moving, taking, and demanding. After a few seconds of OMG, it’s as if someone else entered his body because the tempo abruptly shifted. The kiss became hungry, frenzied, and so savagely impassioned I actually crawled out of the dang room because my legs forgot how to work. I’m here to tell you that last type of kissing is why the Earth is overpopulated. And I’m afraid if it happened again, I’d get pregnant from saliva alone.
The thought made me shivery.
Dylan and I never spoke directly of the kiss, but after the accident, it hung in the air like a massive sexual humidity. The heated gaze in his eyes told me he’d actually been conscious for it. A part of me wished he hadn’t—that he’d been dreaming, and I was merely the conduit to a majorly hormonal fantasy. But that wasn’t the case. Problem was, I felt something which—shall I put diplomatically—lay in that dark, forbidden nether region Murphy Walker forbade me to speak of.
We still remained best friends. Wild animals couldn’t tear us apart. In fact, he dropped me off this morning then drove to Ohio State University to visit his sister, due to pick me up at closing. First off, I thought it odd he drove to Columbus for the day, merely to turn back around and pick me up tonight. Secondly, when he was hush-hush about the reason for the trip, I didn’t push. Believe me, a first. But he called an hour ago and said a tractor-trailer dumped a load of animal fat all over the freeway, leaving him stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Suuuuuure. Riiiiiiiiight
.
All I wanted to know was if the bumper fit the four-wheeled or two-legged kind.
Chances were she was the 36-24-36 model.
That left Claudia Gonzalez, my Puerto Rican nanny, to perform taxi service. Right on cue, the moment I disconnected with Grumpy, Claudia bounced through the door dressed in a Hawaiian flowered muumuu. One step above midget, she stood five feet tall with inky black hair, big lips, big boobs, and big hips. Claudia never—and I mean never wore a coat. I think it’s because she’d been gifted with so much insulation upstairs.
The door caught a gust of wind, floating through the vertical blinds on the windows. I shivered and hugged my arms to my sides. I turned into a reptile in the dead of winter. My body temperature dropped, and my skin resembled a komodo dragon’s that’d been freeze-dried. Two pairs of socks usually did the trick…tonight might’ve warranted three.
Claudia grabbed my hand across the counter like she tried to catch a runaway train. “Vamoose!” she eeked, wanting to get out of Dodge quicker than the cast of Gunsmoke.
Why? Mr. B had a crush on her.
As in an I’m-going-to-knock-you-up-soon crush.
It couldn’t have been scripted better. Right then, Mr. B maneuvered up the aisle with a Coke in both pockets of his blazer and a leg of lamb in his hand. When he saw Claudia, his eyes went loopty-loo, and a long pause hung in the air. He thought it was destinies hooking up; Claudia felt she was dodging a cow patty.
“Vamoose, vamoose, vamoose!” she nervously gasped again. She grabbed my purse from the counter, hooked it over her shoulder, and had one booted foot in the doorway when he appeared at her heels.
Turning her around by the elbow, he pointed the leg of lamb in her face. “You, woman, are going to be my porkin’ Jezebel by Christmas. Pork,” he grunted, “you’re one hot chiquita.” No kidding, her boobs weighed about as much as his head. I felt the need to laugh but shockingly squelched it back.
“Castro needs to clean up his mouth!” she snapped, slapping his head. “Or my niña quits! Do you understand this ‘porks’?” she said, turning to me.
Not really.
I didn’t want to plumb the depths of Mr. Belinski’s brain. Talking with him was tantamount to reading the King James Bible; the words didn’t always make sense. All I knew was he made the word “pork” a curse word—when in reality, bacon might be the eighth wonder of the world. When he grinned even deeper, she slapped him harder, her flowered muumuu swaying like a tropical palm. Mr. B’s head snapped, and he rocked back on his heels, dropping the leg of lamb. When he moved to catch it, he flat-backed in a decibel that rattled the foundation. Heck, it probably rattled the world.
His chubby hand palmed his jaw. “I like a woman who takes what she needs.”
Ugh, that statement made me feel dirty. I squatted down, miraculously pulling him to a standing position.
As he continued with the goo-goo eyes, I quickly unplugged the hotdog case, turned off the space heater, and grabbed the jacket I’d slung over a wooden chair. It was a silver, down-filled coat with a gray fur collar. I thought it was rad but feared I looked like a Care Bear. I then jogged back to the break room and “lifted”—I marked in quotations in my mind—Mr. B’s car keys. I’d return them tomorrow, but at least he’d sleep the vodka off in the store.
Claudia and I left him standing and stepped out into the gusty night air. The cold wind bit into my face like an angry dog as I hurriedly stuffed my fingers inside my gloves. Cincinnati sucked in the winter. Come to think of it, everything sucked, and my boredom just added to the suckery.
Snow blew in my face. And while I swatted it away, I kerplunked my new Adidas sneakers in a mud puddle. Kicking the snowy slush free, I glanced across the street to the neighboring strip mall comprised of Schomberg’s Dry Cleaners, Nowacki’s Videos, Walgreens pharmacy, and Turn-and-Burn Tanning Salon.
I leaned up against a column and retied my shoe, pausing to glance down at the curb. Holy Moses, it was a criminal’s dream. Lying in the snowy gutter were two dirty Visa check cards and one social security card. I blinked twice for the image to register. Snatching them up, I shoved them in my coat pocket and pulled my zipper to my chin. I felt the buzz of my iPhone in my back pocket. Since Murphy considered an iPhone electronic overkill, I worked for a month to purchase one all on my own. This month’s ringtone was “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” I fished it out and realized the caller was my Uncle Shepard, AKA Rookie Johnson. “Hey, Rookie,” I greeted.
Rookie possessed one of those deep voices that woke every cell in your body. He worked as the Hamilton County Prosecutor—the head honcho responsible for bringing criminals to justice. For future reference, that could come in handy, but so far I was only on the recreational side of his personality. “Hey, Darc,” he murmured, “are you on your way over?” I was spending the night with him while my father and little sister were out of town. Overnights usually meant ice cream for breakfast, but it also meant he’d grill me on the particulars of my love life. I had no love life. The thing with Rookie, he’d let you express your opinions with impunity. Lawyer talk for no judgment…at least not verbally.
“Yeah,” I answered, sunshine in my voice. My cell beeped again, alerting me another call was on deck. I sighed deeply when I clocked on the number.
“Hold on a sec. It’s time for my daily Dylan Interruptus.”
I heard Rookie chuckle when I clicked over to my best friend. I wanted to say, “What’s her name, Romeo?” Instead, “Hey, D, I missed you,” tumbled out of my mouth. I hated when my mind and mouth didn’t work together, and frankly that was the majority of the time. Dylan’s mere presence, once again, deluged me with too many emotions to count. The biggest being attraction. We had a cat-and-mouse game going that’d grown old.
Something had to give…and give soon.
“Talk dirty to me, sweetheart,” he murmured.
I rolled my eyes to this occasional greeting. “Nuclear waste, Wall Street, Congress,” I muttered. “That’s all the dirty I’ve got today. Let me call—”
“Ah-ah-ah,” he chuckled staccato. “Not so fast; I’ve missed your voice. My watch says your shift is over, so whoever you’re talking to can wait.” I didn’t like ultimatums. In fact, they made me want to do the opposite, but when Dylan issued one, it sounded sort of…well, hot. “Let’s go to dinner, sweetheart.”
Currently, I lived on impure thoughts—food was kind of an afterthought.
“Nah, I’m good. Listen to this sound…beeeeeeeep.”
“Don’t hang up,” he murmured quickly. “That’s cruel and unusual punishment. I didn’t know you were into kinky, but it’s not like I’m objecting.”
“I’m into a lot of things. Just not with you.”
I added a diabolical bwahaha laugh.
I could hear Dylan frowning. He breathed; I breathed. I shook the ice out of my shoe again, but when Claudia laid on the horn, it shocked me back to reality…or my default setting.
To risk another frown on an otherwise perfect face, I sighed, “I’m teasing, and I missed you,” blah, blah, and more codependent blah. I succumbed to another laugh and then looked to the right while I stepped off the curb. I briefly wondered if we’d still meet up tonight and barely realized a small part of me—unfortunately, the smallest—screamed I was danger bound.
2. Fatal Attraction
It’s like we’d been frozen in time.
My head slowly shifted to the left when I realized I’d stepped out in front of a moving vehicle. Sometimes people say they have out of body experiences, where their mind actually steps outside their physical entity and observes the world around them; I think I had one right then. I’d slipped outside my skin and watched myself spill to the pavement and splat like an egg. My phone crashed several feet ahead as my right hand took the brunt of the fall. I even threw in a forward roll before
the car squealed to a stop. Somewhere in the distance, I heard rapid Spanish and the ground echoing with frantic footfalls. I landed flat on my back, spinning and facing the car with half my body underneath. A different series of bumpity-bumps hit the air, and I didn’t know if my brain rattled around or another part of my body broke in two.
When I made an effort to stand…God help me, I tumbled down.
Down, down, down, into what I quickly surmised was an open manhole.
Holy shiiiiiii-, I almost cursed. I screamed my I’m-Jamie-Lee-Curtis-and-Michael-Myers-is-after-me scream of Halloween. I was freaked way the heck out because my guess was…
I was dead.
All I could hope for was they spelled my name right on the tombstone because God knew I’d been misrepresented before. Last summer, I went undercover and helped the Orlando Police discover the whereabouts of a little boy who’d been missing for six months. I had a knack for solving problems or seeing things no one else saw, and when I read of his plight, I inserted myself into the details of the case. To make a long story short, I used a code name of Jester. I liked to think Jester was the bad girl, not Darcy Walker. Call me the Queen of Rationalization, but it’s the way I made peace with my impulse control issues. To the best of my knowledge, Jester was still only known by a handful of people, but when the newspaper credited things to Darcy Walker (successes that came via Jester), I’d erroneously been listed as Darky Walton.
I mean, get it right or leave me out altogether.
Mofos…there went my fifteen minutes of fame.
I mouthed my name twice, carefully enunciating the syllables, throwing in the correct spelling. Trouble was, no one was around to hear. I heard another squealing stop and what sounded like a car door slamming shut.
I lay prostrate in the bowels of the city’s sewer. Gutter trash. As I drug myself up to a standing position, it felt like I swam in an oil slick. My hands were slippery with white, peppery slush, and the cold water drenching them cut like a bee sting. A full moon filled the round hole I’d fallen through, and the first thing to register was a flashlight and a pair of legs, dangling until they dropped down beside me in a coordinated jump.