Enemies and Playmates

by Darcia Helle

“Looks like we’re at a standoff,” the man said.

  Jesse held his gun firm. The woman for a distraction. One attacker with a purple snubnose. Unique. But loud. A shot from that would certainly be heard by anyone in the adjacent rooms.

  Something was missing. Then he felt it. A sharp blow to his shoulder. His arm went numb and he lost his grip on his gun. He cursed himself for not expecting someone to be hiding behind the damn shower curtain. He was living a bad movie. Next he’d be attacked with a damn chainsaw.

  The stranger behind him snatched his gun and shoved him forward. Jesse turned. The second man was larger. He had black hair that was either greasy or wet and he was missing a front tooth. He held a .9mm equipped with a long black silencer. Jesse stood between the two men and tried to figure a way to keep from dying.

  The toothless man stuck Jesse’s gun in the cavernous pocket of his cargo pants. He was wearing black leather gloves. “Don’t move,” he said to Jesse.

  Jesse glanced at Kristen. She was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed in front of her. She smiled and blew him a kiss. He’d never wanted to smack a woman before but this one ranked right up there with a full-blown beating.

  “Now we’re going to play a little game,” Trench Coat said. “See Ryder, you and Kristen have been having a wild fling for months now. But, unfortunately for you, she caught wind of your other playmate. Lauren, is it? Well, as you can see, Kristen here isn’t the understanding type.”

  Kristen smiled and sashayed closer. As she did, Trench Coat grabbed her by the hair, holding her in place. He said, “Unfortunately for Kristen, you’re going to kill her.”

  “What the hell?” Kristen wriggled in a futile attempt to free herself. “You bastards!”

  Trench Coat shrugged. “Not my idea, baby.”

  Kristen began flailing her arms like a crazed windmill, while screeching in Trench Coat’s ear. She was promptly slapped in the face for her efforts.

  Trench Coat threw Kristen to the floor. He placed his army boot on her neck. “If you so much as move,” he said, “I will cut off your air supply.”

  Jesse decided that watching Kristen get beaten was not as much fun as he would have expected.

  The toothless guy nudged Jesse. “After you knock her off the balcony,” he said, “you’re gonna put a bullet in your own head. Sound like a plan?”

  Jesse shook his head. “Nah, it’s all wrong. Why would I shoot myself? No one knows I’m here. I could just leave. It’d look like she committed suicide.”

  Trench Coat glared at Jesse. “You got a better plan? Rather die another way?”

  “Seriously guys,” Jesse said. “No way in hell Covington came up with this one. Did he actually pay you to think this up?” He motioned to Kristen. “Was this an easy way to get rid of us both? She on his nerves lately, too?”

  “Why don’t you shut the fuck up,” Toothless said.

  “Hey, you asked me,” Jesse said.

  Toothless pressed his gun against the back of Jesse’s head. “Rather I shoot you right here, right now?

  “Nah, I don’t much like that plan, either.”

  “Out on the balcony,” Trench Coat said.

  Trench Coat grabbed Kristen by the hair and yanked her to her feet. As she opened her mouth to scream, he punched her square in the jaw. The sharp crack made Jesse wince. Blood filled her mouth, oozed down her chin. The site brought Jesse no pleasure, though somehow he thought it should.

  Trench Coat dragged Kristen out onto the balcony. Toothless shoved Jesse and told him to follow.

  The rain came down in sheets. The wind whipped the cold drops into their faces. Jesse took a long, slow breath. Now or never.

  Jesse shoved his elbow back into the chest of Toothless. As Toothless doubled over, Jesse grabbed the railing and kicked backward. The heel of his boot connected with Toothless’ temple, instantly knocking him unconscious.

  Trench Coat had hold of Kristen. His gun pointed at Jesse’s face. “Don’t move another fucking muscle,” he said.

  “If you shoot me, the game’s over,” Jesse said.

  “Change of plans,” Trench Coat said. “Kristen here kills you. ‘Cause you beat her, broke her jaw.”

  “You’re pretty quick,” Jesse said. “Think Covington will be okay with that plot twist?”

  The man said nothing but Jesse caught the moment of uncertainty in his eyes. That moment’s hesitation was enough for Jesse. He still had a reasonably firm hold on the slick railing. He swung his leg in a roundhouse kick and caught Trench Coat just behind the knee. The man fell to the concrete floor as if in slow motion, reaching for something to catch himself, trying to keep hold of Kristen and his gun.

  Jesse dove back to where Toothless had fallen. The .9mm lay beside him. Jesse grabbed for it as the rain pelted him and distorted his vision. He gripped the gun, scrambled to turn back toward Trench Coat.

  A gunshot exploded. The sound was almost lost in the driving rain. The burst of pain in his right leg registered somewhere in the back of his mind. He rolled away, saw Trench Coat fumbling to extricate himself from the tangle he’d fallen in with Kristen.

  The fluorescent purple barrel stared down at Jesse. He swallowed hard but didn’t really think. He squeezed the trigger of the .9mm in his own hand and Trench Coat slumped back to the ground.

  Jesse closed his eyes, reminded himself to breathe. Then he leaned over and yanked his own gun from the unconscious toothless guy’s pants. The guy’s temple was bleeding, though it was hard to tell how badly since the rain quickly washed it away. Jesse used the man’s shirt to wipe his prints from the .9mm. Then he laid it on the ground beside Toothless.

  Jesse stood gingerly. His right thigh throbbed but the pain was manageable. Kristen had huddled in a ball in the far corner of the balcony. Rain plastered her hair to her face. Her makeup ran and formed a black puddle beneath her eyes. She looked at him with the blank stare of a drug addict.

  Limping over to Trench Coat, Jesse leaned down and checked for a pulse. He hadn’t expected to find one. Just one nice clean hole in the center of his forehead.

  Jesse had to get out of there. Even with the thumping rain, the gunshots had to have drawn attention. The last thing he needed was to try and explain this mess to Eldridge.

  He looked down at Kristen. Her blouse had torn open. Her skirt rode up to expose a black lace thong. She was visibly trembling. He said, “I’m getting out of here. You can stay or go, I don’t care. Say whatever you want about what happened. But I was never here. Got it?”

  Kristen nodded. Jesse stuck his gun in the top of his pants, zipped his coat, and glanced down over the railing. Tenth floor. Why couldn’t they have been on the second? Then he could have hopped over the railing. Instead he’d have to find a way out of the building without being noticed. A soaking wet, bleeding man coming from a room where gunshots were fired. Simple

  He glanced one last time at Kristen. She hadn’t moved. Looked to be in shock. He almost felt bad. Almost.

  He went inside the hotel room. His clothing stuck to him in a heavy wet wad. He found a towel in the bathroom and tied it around his leg to squelch the bleeding. He didn’t need his DNA being picked off the carpets. Then he stood at the door and listened. Hearing nothing, he pulled it open. No one in the hall.

  He did a little limp-jog down the hall and around the corner. Not wanting to chance an elevator ride, he found the stairs on the opposite side of the building and managed to jog down all ten flights. His thigh burned.

  Jesse went out the back emergency exit. Luckily the door didn’t have one of those annoying alarms rigged to it. He strode as quickly and casually as possible around the building, down the far edge of the parking lot, and to his car. No one was out. One good thing about the rain.

  Once in his car, Jesse wasted no time starting the engine and getting himself out of the vicinity. He passed two police cruisers on his way. Timing was everything.

  He drove six blocks before stopping in a convenience store parking lot
to look at his leg. The bullet had gone through the side of his thigh. He had a couple nasty holes but at least the bullet wasn’t lodged in there. He could take care of it himself. Avoiding hospitals when you had a bullet wound was the best way to handle a situation you were never in.

  27

  Lauren left her last class at one p.m.. Her stomach had been in knots since early that morning, when she’d received a call from Bob Kent, Gina’s father. He wanted to see her. He hadn’t said why, only that he’d appreciate it if she could drop by his office sometime today.

  Lauren’s stomach did another sickening flutter. He had to know Gina was pregnant. And who the father of that baby was.

  The prospect of discussing the issue with Mr. Kent made her physically ill. She had nothing to do with this. She hadn’t known, couldn’t have done anything about it. What could he possibly want from her?

  Strangely enough, Mr. Kent hadn’t sounded irate on the phone, as she would have expected. His voice had actually been subdued, his request polite.

  Lauren drove the few miles to Bob Kent’s office. He worked on the fifteenth floor of a high glass and steel building. When she and Gina were small, they used to love to visit so they could ride the glass elevator up and down the fifteen floors. Now Lauren was not enjoying the ride at all.

  She stepped off the elevator and walked down the wide corridor. Her steps were hushed by the thick carpet. Bob Kent’s office was at the very end. He’d occupied that same office since he’d become an architect nearly twenty-five years ago. He could easily afford to upgrade but always said he had no desire to do so. His office was comfortable, which for him was all that mattered.

  Bob Kent was nothing like her father.

  Peggy, Bob Kent’s secretary, was not at her desk. His office door was ajar. Lauren unconsciously held her breath as she approached and peered inside. Bob was busy at his desk, his head bent down over a wad of paperwork, concentrating. Lauren tapped on the door.

  “Come in,” Bob said.

  As Lauren stepped inside, Bob Kent rose. Always the gentleman. “Hi, Mr. Kent,” Lauren said.

  “Lauren, I’m glad you were able to stop by. Grab a seat.”

  Lauren took one of the seats opposite the desk. She looked down at her hands in her lap, twisted the ring on her finger. She was barely breathing.

  She’d never been nervous around Gina’s father before. He was the type of guy that always made everyone feel welcome. And though he hadn’t said or done anything today to change that, the mood was unmistakable. Everything had changed. For both of them.

  Bob’s voice was soft and sad. “Gina and I have talked,” he said. “About her pregnancy. And the baby’s father.”

  Lauren couldn’t look up, couldn’t meet his eyes. She didn’t want to see the disgust there.

  “She told me everything,” Bob said.

  “I’m glad she did,” Lauren managed to say.

  “I already knew a good portion of the story.”

  “You did?”

  Bob nodded. His face was pale and his eyes were sunken into dark hollows. He said, “I saw them leaving a restaurant together late one night a few weeks ago. Of course I was suspicious. I followed them to what I now know was your father’s condo. Gina didn’t come out until three that morning.”

  Lauren twisted her ring. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I was enraged. Heartbroken, really. But I had no idea how to deal with it. She is of age. I couldn’t forbid her from seeing him. You know how far that would get me with Gina.”

  Bob sighed, a sound of hopeless exhaustion. “I considered confronting your father,” he said. “Truthfully, I wanted to slam his head against a wall, which is why I stayed away. The days passed while I kept trying to find a way to talk to my daughter.

  “When Gina told Sandy and me that she is pregnant, of course I immediately knew who the father was.” Bob shook his head. His gaze dropped to his desk. “It was killing me because I knew he wasn’t going to be there for her. I know what kind of man he is.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Lauren said.

  “I’m not telling you this because I expect you to have answers. I’m simply hoping you can understand the state of mind I was in. She’s my little girl. What he’d done to her… I couldn’t stand it. When she told me it had been going on for years, I was horrified. Years. She’d been a child.”

  “I know. I mean, I didn’t know then. I…”

  “And now he’s threatening her, trying to force her into an abortion. Making her out to be a whore.”

  Lauren’s stomach was turning itself inside out. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Lauren, I’m the person who shot your father the other day.”

  “Oh God,” Lauren muttered.

  Bob took his glasses off and rubbed his watery eyes. “I had to clear the air with you. He’s your father, after all. I had no right… It doesn’t matter what he did, I had no right.”

  “I understand.”

  Bob looked a Lauren a moment. His eyes were sad. “I haven’t told Gina yet,” he said. “I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it.”

  “Then don’t,” Lauren said. “She doesn’t need to know.”

  “She’ll find out regardless,” Bob said. “And I want her to hear it from me. The truth of it. What I was feeling and why. So I plan to tell her tonight. I’ll be turning myself in to the police afterward.”

  “Why?”

  Bob slipped his glasses back on. He met Lauren’s eyes. “I can’t live with myself. With what I did.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Lauren said. “There’s no evidence that you were involved.”

  “I expected you to be furious, to scream at me. Yet you don’t even seem upset with what I did.”

  “I understand why you reacted the way you did,” Lauren said. “And, honestly, I wish you had killed him.”

  “Dear Lord. Things are that bad at home?”

  “Don’t turn yourself in. No one will ever know.”

  “I know, Lauren. But I have to do what’s right.”

  A tear slid down Lauren’s cheek. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”

  “Oh honey, I’m supposed to be saying that to you.”

  Knowing that the news about Bob Kent would likely break that night, Lauren drove straight from his office to Marc’s condo. She told her mother everything about her father and Gina, the pregnancy, and the shooting. Her mother’s expression had gone from disbelief, to shock, to horror.

  Then Lauren told her about the conflict between her father and Jesse, how Alex had threatened to kill Jesse, and the case Jesse was currently building to have Alex put away.

  None of it had been easy to say. Lauren and her mother both shed a lot of tears. But at least there were no more secrets. They were no longer keeping the silence that had protected Alex Covington for so many years.

  Now Lauren sat at her work desk, within the petitioned area that was her cubicle. Conversation buzzed around her. She leaned forward, fingers on her keyboard, peering intently at her computer monitor. Anyone watching would think she was engrossed in her work. The truth was that she hadn’t done a thing in the forty-five minutes since arriving there. She kept flashing back to her mother’s horrified expression. She thought of Bob Kent’s apologetic confession and how his and his family’s life would never be the same. So much destruction. All because of one man.

  “Hey babe.”

  Lauren’s heart leapt into her throat. She gasped and spun around, then smiled when she realized it was Jesse standing beside her. “What a great surprise,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  Jesse pulled a chair up beside Lauren and sat straddling it backwards. “I just dropped in to say hello.”

  “You have that devilish grin,” Lauren said. “What’s going on?”

  “I met with Eldridge about an hour ago.”

  “What about? I thought he booted you out.”

  “Yeah, things change quickly when he n
eeds me,” Jesse said. “Forenzi cut a deal, so he’ll be talking. Surprised the hell out of me. He says he’s a dead man anyway, so he’s going to take them all down with him. Last thing I expected from the guy but I’m sure as hell not complaining.”

  “So that’s the end of it? I mean, you’re done? They have everything they need?”

  “They should have an arrest warrant soon. The process won’t take as long with Forenzi talking.”

  Lauren wrapped her arms around Jesse and melted with relief. “So it’s finally over?”

  “In some ways it’s just beginning.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Trials take a long time. You know how the system works. Stuff will come up. Your family will probably take a lot of heat from the press.” Jesse grinned, glanced around him. “Maybe they’ll cut you some slack on that here.”

  “At least you’re safe now, right?” Lauren said. “My father won’t be sending anyone after you. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “I got your message about Gina’s father. I’m really sorry.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I made some calls. They’re considering statutory rape charges on your father. Gina’s father might be able to get off with probation and mandatory counseling.”

  “That would be great.”

  “I thought that would make you feel better.”

  “But you still haven’t answered my question.”

  Jesse drummed his fingers against the back of the chair. “I’m not going to lie to you. I honestly don’t know how your father will react to this. I don’t know what to expect.”

  “Won’t they keep him in jail?”

  “He’ll probably get bail. I don’t know. Don’t worry about that now.”

  Lauren wanted it all to end. She also knew it was all way beyond both of their control now. She said, “I had to tell my mom about Gina today.”

  “I figured. How did it go?”

  “Awful. No one would want to hear that stuff about someone they were married to. She was devastated.”

  “I’m sorry. You’ve had a shitty day, haven’t you?”