A Harmless Little Plan (Harmless #3)

by Meli Raine

  “Drew – er, Pete?” Tiffany’s long fingernails are digging into my bicep. “You listening?”

  “Sure.” No, I’m not. I’m calculating and trying to figure out whether Lindsay is so smart that she’s able to override every fear response in her and act in a self-preserving way that is highly risky, or she’s played me all along.

  And you known the damnedest part?

  Either way, I still love her.

  “So that’s okay?’ Tiffany interrupts, looking at me like she thinks I’ve been listening to her.

  “Sure.”

  She gives me a kiss on the cheek and scampers off.

  And then my fucking phone rings.

  I leap up, whack my head on a towel rack, and my phone goes flying, cracking on the tile floor with the sickening sound of a screen shattering. My tools go everywhere, and Tiffany squeals.

  The phone still works, thank God. I don’t recognize the number, but that’s not new. I ignore it.

  I flip back over to the scene in the bedroom.

  Lindsay and John are kissing like they’re in the backseat of Daddy’s fancy car on prom night.

  Stellan’s leering at Jane.

  My stomach falls through the floor, blood picking up speed like it’s a horse in the Kentucky Derby on its last leg.

  What the fuck am I supposed to believe right now?

  My phone rings again. Same number. I pick up. Maybe it’s Silas on a new line.

  “Drew? Jesus, Drew, get the fuck out of there.” It’s Mark Paulson.

  “Mark? What? Did Silas tell you -- ”

  “I’m not the one who got you released from jail, Drew.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t get you released. I was in D.C. with Galt, trying to use every connection we have between the two of us. I was obstructed and stalled in every way you can imagine. My dad said he’d never seen anything like it, and if Galt Halloway can’t get shit done, you know there’s something deep at play.”

  “You’re saying Stellan, Blaine and John got me sprung?”

  “I’m saying,” Mark says slowly, as I watch Blaine Fucking Maisri waltz into my bedroom and rip Lindsay and John apart, then turn and say something to Jane, “that you’ve been set up even more than you ever imagined. Whoever got you out of jail, and whoever blocked my dad and me from getting you out, has power that goes all the way to the fucking top.” I keep flipping between watching the scene on the other side of the wall and listening to Mark, my phone flying fast and furious between my eyes and my ear.

  “Where are you, Paulson? And why should I trust you? You’re telling me you’re not the one who got me out, and -- ”

  “Drew, you don’t have a choice. We’re on our way.”

  Can’t trust Lindsay, can’t trust anyone. I look at my screen and there’s Blaine, on top of Lindsay on the bed, and she’s screaming.

  I feel the screaming in my bones.

  And then the screaming ends, abruptly, like a snapped wishbone, like a twig turned to kindling, like death is a fulcrum you use to break everything to pieces.

  “No time. They’re going in for the kill now, Mark. Now,” I whisper, hanging up.

  And then I ready my weapon as Blaine cups Lindsay’s breast, his hand going lower, lower...

  My leg’s ready to kick in the panel. Milliseconds before I deploy the kick, John leans down, his face filling my phone.

  As I let all the kinetic energy in my body release, my gun in my hand, my mind a blank slate, he says, “Hi, Drew.”

  Chapter 9

  Lindsay

  My hearing’s shut down, the sound of my own blood rushing through me so strong, I almost miss the splintering gasp of wallboard breaking. Drew crashes into the room like something out of an action movie. He’s holding a weapon in each hand and Blaine’s on me, his cock rubbing hard against my thigh through his pants, his wet mouth demanding my lips, my tongue, my attention.

  A sound like thunder in my ear makes me scream deep in my throat, biting hard on Blaine’s tongue. I taste copper and pain, then he twitches and trembles, the violent shakes so bad I feel electrocuted.

  And then he slumps forward, deadweight, crushing me.

  Can’t breathe.

  Can’t hear.

  Can’t see.

  Can’t anything.

  Oh, thank God.

  It’s over and I’ll just faint and fade out and be nothing and oh drew oh drew i love you and please please please --

  Someone shoves Blaine off me and my world is bright and big and full of pain.

  Loud crashes, my throat being squeezed, and eyes that fill with love and horror aimed at me.

  For me.

  It’s Drew.

  I’m covered in blood, all over my belly and thighs. I look like I got my period but it’s too far north, congealed in my navel, stroked along my lower ribs like warpaint, like feathers dragged through holiday paint.

  I’m bleeding.

  But I don’t feel like I’m bleeding.

  John and Stellan are screaming. John has a gun at Drew’s head, pressed right against his temple, while Stellan’s holding his knife to Jane’s throat.

  There’s a huge, human-sized hole in the wall, pipes in the way, tufts of pink insulation poking out like cotton candy, begging to be eaten.

  Nothing makes sense. There are too many sounds, too many movements, so much motion and light and dark and space. The air’s scent is rife with blood and fear, all our musks mingling to make for sour promises and tangy loose ends. I don’t move because I don’t have a framework for what it means to move. I don’t speak because I’m not certain what words are.

  I just look at Drew.

  And he stares right back, unreadable.

  Has he given up, too?

  No. Impossible. He can’t have given up, because he wouldn’t have crashed through the wall. Wouldn’t have killed Blaine. Wouldn’t be standing there, chin jutting up, facing off with John and Stellan.

  I know backup is coming. Mark and Silas? Someone else? Drew wouldn’t do this rogue.

  “Hello!” A high-pitched, fake voice comes through the hole in the wall. “Is there a party in there? I just love -- ”

  “We’ll be right there, Tiffany. Stay in your apartment. Go to the living room,” Drew yells.

  “Fine,” she says, never coming into view, her voice full of bitter acceptance.

  Stellan glances at Blaine’s body. A giant dark stain is pooling under him, right where his head is. The room’s turned into a dark tunnel, with two points of vision for me, so I’m not sure what I see. I reach up to rub my eyes and my hand is gooey.

  Blood.

  Blaine’s blood.

  “What a good idea,” Stellan says slowly as John taps on his phone with one hand. “Let’s go over to Tiffany’s place.” He shoves Jane through the hole in the wall before she realizes it, her head whacking the wallboard, a long, angry scratch forming on her neck. I see it in slow motion.

  Time is distorted.

  Drew looks at my naked body with an expression of chilly evaluation. I search his eyes, needing any form of emotion to show. A twitch, a blink, a micro-expression that tells me he cares.

  He’s a robot.

  John and Stellan make us huddle in the other apartment’s living room, where Tiffany gives me a horrified shriek and screams, “Pete! What the fuck? I’m trying to get out of porn. I don’t do this torture shit!”

  “Shut up!” John screams, the gun on Drew the entire time. “Say one more word, bitch, and I splatter his brains all over your couch.”

  “But that couch isn’t paid for yet!” she wails, dissolving into a puddle on the floor.

  Who is Pete? My brain isn’t working with all cylinders. I look at Drew, who looks at Tiffany.

  Who winks at him.

  Winks.

  A wave of ice-cold nausea pours over me like someone’s dumped a bucket full of slush on my head. Is this a set-up? Is Drew in on this somehow? Is that why he came crashing through the wall – b
ecause he knew damn well that the guys took me to his apartment?

  Because he let them?

  How far does this game go?

  All the tension in my body drains out and I sit on the couch.

  “Hey! Blood!” Tiffany squeals.

  I ignore her, grabbing a pillow and hugging it, wanting a tiny sliver of modesty. Of warmth.

  Of something.

  “This isn’t a snuff film, is it?” Alarm fills Tiffany’s wide eyes. “Because I didn’t sign on for anything like that.”

  Her voice goes to a whisper as Stellan glares at her. “Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” he says.

  She complies.

  “I can’t believe he fucking killed Blaine,” John says to Stellan, clearly unraveling, his hair soaked with sweat, face oily, left eye twitching.

  “You think he won’t kill us both if he gets the chance? We can’t give him that chance, John,” Stellan replies, dropping the knife from Jane’s throat. He shoves her toward me. She sits on the couch.

  I move away.

  “Lindsay, I swear I’m not in on this,” she says under her breath. “They threatened me once they figured out I was your Island contact. My mom had no choice because they -- ”

  A loud popping sound, like a wet bag of sugar being tossed from a moving car, makes me jolt. Jane’s head rockets into my lap, a big indent in her forehead directly over her right eye. I didn’t know that bones could dent.

  I reach up and touch my own eye socket, the one they reconstructed four years ago.

  I guess I do know.

  I didn’t see my own beating, though.

  As Jane moans, the vibration from her throat makes my thighs tingle. Her head is on the pillow and she’s making this bizarre gagging sound. Her breathing speeds up, from zero to sixty, and then she starts to choke-scream, like she’s drowning.

  It’s all happening in my lap and I can’t do anything but stare dumbly.

  And then she passes out.

  One long, rattling breath comes out of her, and then she sighs, a thin, drawn-out sound that makes me think she’s dead. Another breath comes, then another, and soon she’s intermittently making shallow, then deep, sounds.

  “Get off the couch,” Stellan orders. I gently put Jane’s body on the ground at my feet, a process that takes longer than it should.

  “This is really good acting,” Tiffany says to Drew quietly. “Pete.” Then she winks again.

  What the fuck is wrong with this woman?

  Drew ignores her.

  I’m cold. I’m hot. I’m dry. I’m wet. My senses have wires that cross and connect, that are frayed and bent, until I’m just a series of nerves and impulses that have gone haywire. I don’t have feelings like a normal person because none of this is normal.

  None of this is right.

  None of this is real.

  Maybe if I decide this isn’t really happening, I can make it go away.

  I close my eyes.

  And then Drew says, “Nolan Corning’s already turned you in to the police. You have five minutes left before they get here. Go ahead. Kill us all. It won’t matter. You’re either rotting for the rest of your lives in prison, or you’re dead.”

  Drew

  I’m lying. I have nothing to lose. If I can mindfuck John and Stellan, I have a chance of getting everyone out of here alive.

  Except for them.

  Tiffany gives us all a strange look and before Stellan or John can say a word, she laughs. “Nolan Corning? He’s that asshole on television going on all the time about... about...” She frowns, then waves her hand in the air. “About government stuff. I see him on cable news. Is he -- is he a guest star, Drew? I mean, Pete?” She looks around the living room, craning her neck, then grabs the remote. “See? I’ll bet if I turn on the television he’ll -- ”

  John hits her hand so hard the remote goes flying into her wall-mounted television and rocks the screen, a spiderweb of cracks marring the glossy space. Tiffany must have pushed the button just before he hit her, though, because the screen comes to life.

  “Oh, my God, the production company damn well better pay for this!” she shouts, giving me a nasty look. “What the hell is this, Drew? You never said the television show would be about guns and knives and naked women with blood. If this is some kind of joke, I -- ”

  Tiffany’s blonde helmet moves in slow motion as Stellan takes the hand with the knife in it and goes after her, slashing down like a pro, ripping open a long line down her bicep. I take the opportunity, grabbing his wrist, feeling the web of my hand slice open as Stellan attacks. His free arm goes around my waist, feet kicking under me to try to make me drop.

  I catch him off-guard as blood drips into my eyes from Tiffany’s wound. She stumbles back and then I can’t see, the blood blinding me.

  I flip to pure instinct, eyes closed, body engaged.

  He’s taller, wiry, with muscles that feel smooth and big under my palm but he’s buff in a practiced way. Stellan’s body is designed for a specific function, not for fighting. From the ground, I kick up, making him fall and taking the single second of advantage to be on him. Something hits my shoulder, a hard, thick object.

  The knife.

  I feel around for it, failing, then put both hands on Stellan.

  But his reflexes are fast, and he’s on his feet before I can let go, dragging me forward. My chin whacks the floor, sending fireworks behind my eyes, a molar cracking in the back of my mouth.

  “Get the fuck away from me, you bitch!” he shouts, then he’s out of reach as I take a hand, wipe my eyes clean, open them --

  And see a naked, blood-covered Lindsay holding the knife.

  She dips into a squat, her right arm at an odd angle, the knife blade up but clutched hard in her filthy hand. Using her thighs, she pushes her body up, turning it into a missile, the kinetic force of her full being in the strike she makes.

  And she hits Stellan in the crotch, all three inches of metal blade sinking into his body.

  That’s not enough.

  Not for her.

  Like a gardener hacking away at overgrown vines, she pulls up, hard, with brute force movement designed for function. She grunts with the strain, a war cry, a battle call. There is hypnotic beauty in her motion. I watch with grotesque reverence.

  Stellan’s entire groin soaks burgundy, like he’s spilled a glass of Pinot Noir at a dinner party, an oaf, a dork, a clumsy man who can’t even handle his drink.

  Reflexively, he reaches out, both hands forming a perfect circle around Lindsay’s neck, her breasts bobbing as he squeezes so hard I hear something snap in her neck.

  And then I burrow the knife further in with a drop kick that makes me grateful for punting practice back in high school. I hit her hand and want to pull back, but force myself to give it my all.

  Stellan drops her neck and falls backwards, pushed a few feet by my blow.

  Click.

  I look up to find John holding two guns, one at Lindsay’s head, one at mine.

  “Go ahead,” he says with a grin.

  “Make my day,” Tiffany finishes for him. Her sad eyes meet mine, her good arm shoving a pillow as hard as possible against her nasty wound. “That’s the old line, right?” She starts to shake. “By the way, I don’t have health insurance, so your television show better cover this.”

  A groan like iron plates grinding together comes from the heap of flesh called Stellan, his eyes glazing over, hands fruitlessly patting at what used to be his cock. Lindsay’s turned it into ceviche.

  “Corning never told us this could happen,” John says through gritted teeth. “This wasn’t part of the deal when we told him we’d rough Lindsay up four years ago.” Safety’s off on both his weapons, and he has the haunted, hunted look of a man who’s coming to reckoning.

  “Rough Lindsay up?” The fact that I just watched my girlfriend turn one of the men who ruined her life into a eunuch has me firmly convinced she can be trusted. I want her to look up, to check in, to give
me a chance to read her and understand her next move, but she’s just a wall of tangled, dirty hair.

  “Yeah. It was supposed to be in good fun. Slip her something, get on camera, make her look like a slut, ruin her dad. You know.” He shrugs like he’s describing how he cheated on a test.

  “And me?”

  “You were all Stellan’s idea, man. He wanted insurance. Said you’d go nuts and ruin us.”

  He casts nervous glances at Stellan, who is still breathing but clearly nonverbal. I hope the motherfucker is in so much pain every single sperm is screaming.

  “That’s not fake blood, is it?” Tiffany says, hysterical, as she watches Stellan pass out. “Oh, my God!” Her panic winds up, her eyes catching everyone’s looking around the room.

  Then she looks at the television and screams,”We’re on TV!”

  Hysteria can do some fucked up damage to people. I ignore her.

  Lindsay, though, looks up and focuses her attention on the television screen.

  Then she smiles.

  The look in her eyes makes me flinch, so I turn and follow her gaze.

  The split screen on the cable news show displays us. Here. Right here, in Tiffany’s living room.

  Live.

  “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” John screams, his voice going high.

  “...new footage, a second videotape from the attack on presidential candidate Senator Harwell Bosworth’s daughter, Lindsay, shows a shocking discovery: Hollywood actor Stellan Asgarth, major league baseball player John Gainsborough, and up-and-coming California state representative Blaine Maisri all unmasked and all involved in sexually assaulting her unconscious form. Digital media experts confirm that the video footage is real and undoctored...”

  The cable news announcer’s voice is flat and unemotional until her voice goes into a gasp, then the live feed from Tiffany’s apartment goes black for a few seconds, resuming with Lindsay’s body pixelated to cover her nakedness.

  “We’ve received word from some webcam fans of a woman known on the Internet only as ‘Sexonda Beach’ that fans witnessed the live feed in her apartment and alerted law enforcement when men with guns, knives, and a naked woman suddenly appeared on camera. Police crews have been -- ”