Devin softened. “Sure.” She squeezed Everett’s hand reassuringly. She was being a cop this time though. A professional. Not a girlfriend.
Devin finished her texting. “There.” She looked at Everett. “Everett I’ll get you out of here somehow. I promise.”
Everett nodded. She didn’t look convinced but she looked moved by Devin’s courage.
“Can I give you your gun back now?”
Devin tucked her phone away, she held out her hand for the gun, which Everett handed over like it was Plutonium.
“Seriously,” Devin said, “The sex must’ve been great because clearly my gun training is terrible.”
Devin gripped her gun, and turned to Everett. “Ready?”
Everett nodded slowly.
Devin slowly turned the knob and opened the door into the corridor. She led with her Glock, then her body, and finally when she saw it was clear, she reached back her hand and waved Everett through.
Everett slipped through the door into the hallway, and the two of them started walking quickly.
“Okay,” Devin said as they made their way down the hallway with the low ceilings. “You’ve done these award shows before, you were here for rehearsal, any idea where they keep the props and all that?”
“Definitely not on the same floor as the stage. I paced every inch of that backstage area during rehearsal and before I went on as a presenter. No props.”
“Okay, so it must be this floor…Let’s go.”
Devin spotted a room down the hall. She led them there. She tried the door, it was locked. She hauled back and kicked it in.
Devin stepped inside and clicked a light on. It was a huge garage. With loading docks and a couple of service trucks – one for the caterers and a general cube van for hauling whatever. “Wow. Who knew this was here?”
She ran over to the giant garage door. Checked for explosives. None.
“This is impossible… How could they not know about this?”
She examined the whole thing. Finally as she was about to press the button to raise the door she saw it. There on the button – wires leading to a huge brick of C4 and a detonator.
“Shit. I thought it was too good to be true.” Devin looked around.
Everett examined the giant green button. “Wait a second… The button is hooked up to the explosives right?”
“Right.”
“But not the door.”
“Right.”
“So if we could open the door without pressing the button, that wouldn’t necessarily trip the explosives… They’re assuming there’s no other way through the door.”
Devin was impressed. She was right. “Yes, but I can’t exactly kick that one down.”
Everett smiled. “No…. But that thing can.”
She pointed to the cube van.
“It’s pretty dangerous, Everett.”
“More dangerous than where we are right now?”
Devin looked at the garage door, then at the truck. Then at Everett. She knew she had to at least try.
88
Zack Chevsky leaned back in his chair and watched the numbers come through.
He looked around behind him. No one there. He took the chance to check on his own account, Zachary Michael Chevsky, Bank of the Cayman Islands, account number 543220001. Current balance 12 million dollars.
“Awesome…” Zack imagined everything he was going to buy. He saw himself driving through the streets of the Cayman Islands a very rich man. All he needed to do was get there. And get his license. But that would all happen.
No more of living in his mother’s basement. No more getting his mother to drive him to places in town. That shit was embarrassing for a 22 year old. Time to be his own man. And this was going to give him the chance.
Richard was such a dick to him. He was glad to be stealing from him right now.
At that moment he looked at his computer and saw something weird. In the light reflected behind him was a tiny circle he hadn’t noticed. He turned around in his chair and looked at the wall behind him. Suddenly all the blood rushed out of his face. He felt his legs start to shake. He saw what that thing behind him on the wall was. He knew what it was cause he’d once used one himself in his friend Buddy’s room to watch him have sex with his girlfriend. Zack turned back around and faced the computer so as not to show his reaction. Maybe no one would notice. Maybe no one would see that he’d just seen it.
The tiny pinhole camera on the wall watching his computer screen and thus watching his every move.
Fuck. He was dead.
89
Devin reached underneath the dash of the cube van where she had removed a panel and was working with the wires in the ignition cylinder. She had found a steak knife in some supplies in the back of the catering truck and was using it to strip the wires. She had first cut the power wires from the cylinder and was now stripping them.
Everett was sitting in the seat next to her, watching.
“… Sexy.”
Devin didn’t look up. “Everett, it’s hotwiring. How sexy is stealing a car?”
“I guess it’s sexy when a girl does it. Maybe you doing it. I don’t know.”
“Well, thanks…” and with that she twisted the two power wires together and the truck’s power turned on, the lights and the radio came on.
Devin clicked the radio off.
She cut the starter wires from the cylinder and stripped the ends careful not to touch the exposed ends so as not to get shocked.
She touched the ends together and the truck started up with a rumble.
She looked over at Everett.
Everett looked back. “Okay, now what?”
“Now, you get out and I’m going to drive through that door.”
“Why don’t you get out and I’ll do it?”
“Why don’t you get out and stop arguing with me?”
“Why don’t you just put your fucking foot on the gas pedal and do it right now.”
“Because I don’t want you to be in danger.”
“I’m already in danger.”
“Everett, I don’t know what that door is made of.”
“I don’t care.”
Devin knew she’d lost the argument. She shifted the cube van into gear. “Okay…”
She looked at Everett again. “And there’s no guarantee it won’t blow up when we drive through.”
“And staying here is any safer?” Everett looked straight ahead. “Do it.”
Devin looked at the door. She lifted her foot off the brake and slammed it down on the accelerator as hard as she could. There was about twenty feet between them and the door. She prayed it was enough.
The door came careening towards them. At the last minute she yelled, “Get down!” And she and Everett ducked under the dash just as the cube van slammed into the giant metal door knocking it forward about two feet.
The truck stopped. Devin looked up from the dash. Well, they weren’t through, but they weren’t dead. Devin looked at the space. It was definitely enough to get through.
“Good enough. Get out.”
She and Everett jumped out of the truck. The clambered over to the new entrance in the door. There was just enough room to get out. “Okay, go.”
Everett slipped her body through into the outside. Devin followed her. Devin looked around. The night air was certainly refreshing right down to her very soul. She scoped out the surroundings. They were at the bottom of a long sloping driveway. Probably in the back of the building. Maybe off of North Orange Drive or Orchid. Either way it didn’t matter. It was freedom. There would be cops for sure just beyond the perimeter. Probably not too far from the top of the ramp. No matter what ,they’d see her when she appeared at the top.
“Everett,” Devin said, “Here’s what I need to have happen. I need you to run as fast as you fucking can. Get to the police. Find the first policeman you can. Tell him you want to talk to Bronco Bennett. No one else. Just Bennett. Tell him the door is open. Tell him how
to get in. And this time you don’t need to hide. Let the news cameras see you. Let Sis and Richard know you’re out. Same with Tannis and Kaden. Let those two know we’re fighting back. Let them know we’re coming after them.”
“Okay,” Everett said, “Let’s go.”
“No, honey. Not me. You.”
Everett looked at her. The sadness in Everett’s eyes said she knew there was no arguing.
“Everett, I can’t leave the hostages. This is my job.”
“I understand,” Everett said quietly.
“Go.”
She looked at Devin.
“Everett, go.”
Everett turned and ran up the ramp as fast as she could, her bare feet slapping on the concrete.
Devin watched until she was up and out and safe. She breathed a little easier knowing Everett was going to be okay.
Now she had to do the same for everyone else. Time to go after Richard and Sis with a vengeance.
She crawled back through the space in the door.
“Okay, Richard… It’s on.”
90
Richard strode into the green room and whipped his gun out. He shot indiscriminately. In the air. Into a vase. Over the heads of the celebrities. But just. He wanted them shaking.
He nodded to one of his men. “Camera on. Now.”
The guy grabbed the camera. But not fast enough for Richard. “NOW!”
Richard pressed the button on his radio. His channel with Sis. “Look, there’s been a complication. But I’m going to complicate it more.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?”
“Jones and the other girl. They aren’t dead?”
“They’re here somewhere. But there’s no reason why the general public needs to know that.”
“We’ve got something else to discuss,” Sis said into the radio.
Richard tweezed the bridge of his nose. He was trying really hard to be patient with Sis, but her bossiness was really getting on his nerves. Like really.
“What, Sis? Fucking what?”
“Don’t be like that with me.”
“Things are a little stressful out here.”
“I understand that, Richard. I just thought you might want to know that that fucking idiot Zack while he’s rechanneling our money into all our accounts has rechanneled a shitload for himself.”
Richard felt himself start to fume. “What?” he hissed.
“Yeah, to the tune of about 12 million dollars.”
That fucking hacker social outcast fucking idiot. He would pay for this. Richard felt around his belt for the extra magazine. He was going to need some extra bullets for all the killing he was going to do. Not to mention the entire magazine he was going to unload in Devin Jones once he found her.
“I’ll take care of it,” Richard said.
“Richard, let’s just leave the plan… he’ll be dead in twenty minutes anyway. And we’ve got to get out of here.”
“I know that, Sis. I fucking know that. In the meantime. I’ve got to take care of what I’ve got to take care of, okay?”
Sis seemed to get the message. “Okay… fine.”
Richard felt his heart thumping in his chest. Fucking Zack stealing from them. Like he didn’t hate the kid enough. If he didn’t need the codes from that kid before they took off, he’d blow his head off right now. But as it was it could wait ten minutes.
Richard gathered himself. He looked into the camera that was now going.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Everett Cale and Devin Jones are dead. How sad. Your little hero. And America’s gay sweetheart…Oh, well.”
He looked at the group. “And now we need to speed things up a bit. I notice donations have dropped off, so” Richard looked at the group, he indicated different people each time he pointed with his finger. “You, you, you, you…him…her…you…you two. Up.”
With that eight of the world’s biggest movie stars stood up. Richard pulled his gun out of his holster.
“I want 250 million in the next three minutes or I’m blowing all their heads off. And this time I’ll do it myself. And this time we’re not even going to the stage. You’re going to die where you stand.” He turned to the camera again. “You got that? Bored of me? 250 million dollars. Now. Or you will see a bloodbath you will never forget.”
91
Devin sat down for a moment. She found a small storage area just next to the garage, and sat down behind some crates and pieces of the set. She sat against the wall and held her phone in front of her.
Everett was gone. She was safe. And she was gone. Gone from her life. Gone from the building. Devin was overcome with this powerful sadness for a quick moment. She shook it off. This was no time to start feeling. But if she could feel, if she could allow herself that luxury she would be having something close to a near death experience right now.
She thought of the two years she wasted with Everett. What she thought was being so in love. Was she ever in love? Or was she always just grasping for something just out of reach? Sure, she’d loved Everett, but how could she actually be so in love with someone who didn’t love her back like that? Sure, it’s possible, but did it actually happen?
Devin flashed on the last conversation she had with Caitlin. Sweet, shy, beautiful Caitlin. Just as beautiful as an Everett Cale, but without all the fuss. Without all the acknowledgment. Just sweetly, beautifully herself. There was something in her, through the shyness that Devin found incredibly attractive, something inside. A sureness. A solidness. A knowingness. Of herself. And like she saw inside Devin. For all the people who saw her as the her she was on the outside, she saw how Caitlin saw inside her to the person she was when she was on her own. To the person she most liked being. The one not a lot of people saw.
She flashed on Caitlin with her dogs walking up the street. The dog walker. Who was she? And why did she make Devin Jones feel so much? There was something there that even Devin didn’t understand.
Devin smiled thinking of Caitlin walking into the mailbox. She thought of how this beautiful girl, her sweetness, her kindness, how lovely and gentle she was with the dogs. And with the way she looked into Devin’s eyes. Devin felt like Caitlin saw the part of her that was alive before the moment she saw her roommate killed in front her. She felt Caitlin saw that part of her like it was beautifully broken, not just fucked up, and how Caitlin also saw it completely healed and whole as it had been before that even happened. Hard to describe.
All she knew was she loved the way that girl looked at her.
Devin punched a number into her phone. After half a ring, Brad picked up.
“Devin?!”
“Yeah.”
“Oh my God, they said you’d died. The guy said they killed you. And Everett Cale.”
“I’m here, hon. And Everett’s fine. I got her out.”
“Thank God…you okay?”
“I’m still here.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Hey, Brad, I’ve got to go and fix this situation somehow. You know, take down the terrorists.”
“Uh huh…”
“In the meantime… Can you tell me how this Twitter thing works?”
92
Caitlin O’Brien sat staring at the television. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard the guy with the gun say. He said Devin Jones was dead. No. NO! This couldn’t be.
Caitlin felt her eyes fill up. Her throat tightened. She changed the channel to see some more coverage.
Anita Gonzales from KLOS 6 was standing in front of the theater. There was a picture of Devin on half the screen. “…Reporting the death of Everett Cale and Devin Jones. But we’ve just received this video which was posted on Twitter.”
Caitlin saw a grainy kind of dark video of Devin. She was still wearing her black dress. She looked so beautiful.
“Hey… I’m Devin Jones. Um… I’m not sure what I want to say. I want to say a couple of things though… One is
I’m still alive. I understand Richard whoever he is said he killed me. Well, he didn’t. Everett Cale either… But you’ll see more of that later… Let’s see what else I can tell you… Oh! Sis Warren. She’s not dead either. Thought you might like to know that. The whole thing was staged. She’s not only alive. She coordinated this whole thing…Hi Sis…Guess that’s about it.”
Caitlin was laughing now.
“Thank God. Thank God. Thank GOD!” Caitlin said. She thought for a moment she might just kiss the screen, but then thought better of it.
“Oh,” Devin said in the video, “And seeing as this is kind of life or death here… I just want to say… on a personal note…I should have asked out the dog walker… That’s all. Bit of a regret. Okay… that’s about it. Thanks.”
The video stopped. And reporter Anita Gonzales filled the screen again. “So there you have it. Devin Jones is still alive… As we saw earlier on the fashion cam, Devin is wearing a Prada dress, cut low in the front and with a …”
Caitlin sat frozen looking at the screen. She couldn’t believe what she just heard. Oh my God…
Then Caitlin steeled her determination. As if that could make a difference for what was happening. She looked at the screen and spoke as though her words could help. She just knew it had to happen. It just had to.
“Come on, Devin Jones… Get out of there!”
93
Bronco Bennett leaned back in a chair in the LAPD command center trailer and pressed an icepack on his forehead. Apparently the three fellow cops who took him down after he wailed on Milner had to slam his head against the sidewalk to get him to calm down.
This is Devin Jones Page 20