Outside the Lines

by Lisa Desrochers

  “Take Sherm up to your room,” I tell Lee. When I look at him, he’s recoiling into the corner of the sofa, staring at the gun in my hand.

  Everything in me tightens. He doesn’t need this reminder of what I’m capable of. Once he and Lee are past the door and on their way up, I reach for the handle.

  “Jesus, Rob! Put the fucking piece away!” Grant says, pushing past Sherm and Lee on the stairs.

  I spin on him. “Who are they?”

  “My friends. We’re partying on the beach tonight.”

  I drop my head into my hand and rub the headache behind my eyes. “No.”

  He barks out a derisive laugh. “Says who?”

  “Me.”

  “You couldn’t even keep the guys on your payroll in line, so why the fuck should I listen to you?” he says, shouldering past me.

  I grab his arm, spin him into the wall, pin him there with a forearm to the throat. “They wanted Delgado blood, I should have given them yours. I should have fucking fed you to them.”

  I forget how fast Grant is until his right hand is cracking against my cheekbone. Underestimating your opponent is always deadly.

  I drive my elbow into his stomach, shove him against the wall again, get up in his face. “You fuck this up for your little brother, I swear, Grant, I will kill you myself.”

  I shove off him. He doubles over, struggling for air.

  “Fuck you, Rob,” he rasps, then slams out the door.

  The sea of people in our driveway converge on him, elbow bumping him and clapping him on the back. I watch from the window as they make their way down the path to the beach in the waning light with several six-packs of Budweiser.

  I’m on the widow’s walk two hours later, an ice pack on my face, watching their bonfire send a white beacon into the night sky and listening to their whoops, when the cop car rolls up the driveway. In the moonlight, I see a tall, bearded cop slip out of the driver’s seat. He gives the house a once-over before heading to the path. I curse Grant under my breath.

  If they’re doing anything illegal down there—if he gets his sorry ass thrown in jail—we’re all screwed. I’m the face of the Delgado clan—the most recognizable—but that doesn’t mean Grant’s mug shot on the Internet wouldn’t draw unwanted attention.

  I hold my breath for the next several minutes as the whoops turn to grumbles and the bonfire is doused. One by one, the mangy group emerges over the crest of the bluff. They all load on their bikes, including Grant, and take off with a thunderous rumble into the night.

  The cop car is still in the drive but the cop is nowhere in sight. A rock sinks in my gut. If those fucking bikers did something to that cop, Grant just signed our contract. We’re all dead.

  I make my way downstairs, step onto the front porch, contemplate whether I should go down there and put myself at the scene of a potential crime. Just as I’m stepping off the porch, the cop emerges from the path. He strides right up to me and stops.

  I take a deep breath, both out of relief and dread. “Officer.”

  He looks me over with keen eyes. “You’re aware that bonfires on the beach are prohibited. There’s also an open container law that prohibits consumption of alcoholic beverages on public property.”

  “I had no involvement in what was going on down there,” I say, holding up my hands in surrender. Better to play this coy.

  His eyes narrow. “But someone in this house did. Those bikes were parked in your driveway.”

  I shake my head. “Not to my knowledge.”

  He taps his thumb on his thigh near his holster. “What happened to your eye?”

  I force my hand to stay away from the welt rising on my face. “Walked into the door.”

  He nods slowly, his sharp gaze taking everything in. He starts to back toward his car. “If you see that gang out here again, give the department a shout.”

  I let out a breath as I watch him pull away. My brother is a ticking time bomb. The sooner we get out of here the better.

  Which means I’ve got a road trip tomorrow.

  *

  I didn’t sleep last night, waiting for Grant. He never came home.

  I drop Sherm at school and he moves up the walk toward his classroom. I stand at my car for a minute staring after him before dropping into my seat. Facing Sherm’s teacher is starting to feel like negotiating a minefield. I want to go in there just to see her. She’s like the sun, bright and hot with her own gravitational field. There’s no escaping her once she’s captured you. But if she sees my shiner, I can only imagine the conclusions she’d jump to.

  I have no idea where it’s coming from—maybe because I haven’t been with a woman for a few months—but every look she gives me, every lick of those full, pink lips, makes my dick stand up and take notice. I take a breath and hold it for a second before blowing it out. Fucking my brother’s teacher would break my own rule. I’ve made it crystal clear to all my siblings to keep their hands off the locals.

  That little blonde scrambles my thoughts, and today I need my head.

  I cruise over the bridge and wind through Loveland toward the highway heading north to Tampa. When I get to the federal courthouse an hour and a half later, I pull into a spot out front that says it’s reserved for US marshal use only. I sit for a second before stashing my Glock in the glove box and locking it. I shoulder out of the car and push through the glass doors. The second I’m inside an itch starts under my skin, as if my very DNA is repelled by these walls. I almost turn around and leave. Instead, I force my discomfort down and show them only what I want them to see—cool confidence.

  I stride toward the security desk, lean on the counter. “I have an appointment with Deputy Buchanan.”

  “Name?” she asks, glancing up, then does a double take. She nips her lower lip between her teeth and stands, smoothing her skirt.

  “Rob Davidson.” The name still doesn’t feel natural to my mouth.

  “Davidson,” she repeats, typing my name into the computer in front of her. “And what is this regarding?” she ask, lifting her eyes toward me and batting her lashes.

  “He’ll know,” I answer, holding her in my pointed gaze.

  She squirms a little, chews her lip again. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” She picks up the phone on her desk and punches a button, then says something into the receiver. When she hangs up, she points me to the metal detector. “Through security to the fourth floor. Check in with me on your way out and I’ll log you out of the building.” She leans forward with her hands on the desk, enhancing her cleavage. “That way we won’t have to call the SWAT team to track you down at the end of the day.”

  I feel her eyes follow me to the checkpoint. I dump my phone on the belt. The guard doesn’t give me a second look as I walk through the detector.

  When the elevator doors open onto the fourth-floor landing, I push through the door in front of me marked United States Marshals Service.

  “Deputy Buchanan,” I tell the older woman at the desk inside a small waiting room.

  “Have a seat,” she says. “He’ll be right out.”

  I don’t sit. I pace the room for the next ninety-seven seconds, then stride down the hall behind the desk when I decide I’ve waited long enough.

  The receptionist bounds out of her seat. “Sir! You can’t—”

  “Buchanan!” I call, cutting her off.

  A guy about my age with a GQ complex pokes his head into the hall from a door three up from where I’m standing—the same guy who met us at the airport when we arrived. I stride that direction as the receptionist chases me up the hall.

  “We need to talk,” I say as I push past him into the small office.

  “It’s okay, Linda,” the guy says, waving off the charging receptionist. “Have a seat, Mr. Davidson.”

  I drop into the leather armchair nearest me, swallowing the urge to rip him to shreds for calling me that.

  He moves to the other side of a cluttered desk and lowers himself into his ergonomic d
esk chair. “I trust your family is getting settled?”

  “Not by a long shot.”

  “You’re staying out of trouble, I hope,” he says, gesturing at my black eye.

  “Not possible.”

  He gives me a skeptical look over his tented fingers. “What is it you need?”

  “A phone that can’t be traced.”

  He leans his elbows onto his desk, looks at me like I have three brain cells. “You understand contacting anyone from your previous life breaches your WITSEC memorandum.”

  “It’s an emergency. I just need to make one phone call. If I can find a secure line without a Florida area code, he won’t know where I am, so it won’t compromise our security.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Davidson but—”

  “Mr. Delgado,” I cut in.

  He gives me a hard look. “Not anymore. If you expect our protection, there are some basic rules. Rules you agreed to when we brought you here. This program is one hundred percent voluntary, so if that arrangement isn’t working for you anymore, you and your family are free to return to Chicago anytime you choose.”

  That’s what I’m trying to do, but on my terms.

  I yank my phone out of my pocket, slam it on his desk. “If I make this call from my phone, they’ll see the area code and know where I am. You’ll have to move us again.”

  “If you make that call from your phone, we’ll have no obligation to you whatsoever, Mr. Davidson.”

  I want to put my fist through this useless bureaucrat worm’s face, but that’s not going to help my family. Instead, I spin out of my chair and slam out the door.

  I check in with the brunette at the security desk on my way out. She slips me her card. “You ever feel like a night out, give me a call.”

  “Sure,” I say, then toss the card in the trash can outside the front door as I stride to my car.

  I stop by the address for Spencer Security that Adri gave me on my way home, just to see what it is. I don’t know what I’m expecting, but the GPS leads me to an industrial area off a small corporate airstrip most of the way back to Port St. Mary.

  I step inside the door and find Spencer Security takes up the entire inside of a steel warehouse that has to span an acre. To the right at the near end, there is a cluster of offices partitioned off with portable walls. At the far end, I can see what looks like a soundproofed area that spans the entire back of the warehouse. A series of pops echo through the cavernous space from that direction. An indoor shooting range, most likely, which intrigues me almost as much as the private jet positioned next to a roll-up door in the airstrip side of the building. To my left is a row of half a dozen limos of all shapes and sizes, from Town Cars to Escalades, standard to stretch. Across from the jet, behind the offices, are a regulation boxing ring and two martial arts mats.

  “Can I help you?” a smoky female voice asks. I turn to see a stunning woman in her forties strutting toward me.

  “I was told to stop in about a job.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “By who?”

  I look her over. She doesn’t look like someone who messes around, and I’d bet my left nut she’ll be running a background check on me if she’s hiring for any kind of security. I know Robert Davidson should come up clean, but it still feels like a risk to have a professional digging around.

  “Sorry,” I say, holding up my hands and backing toward the door. “My mistake.”

  “Robert Davidson,” she says. It’s not a question.

  I stop and lower my hands.

  She folds her arms over her chest. “Chuck Murdock gave me your name. Said you were a friend of a friend and you’d be stopping by.”

  “What is it you’re hiring for?” I ask.

  “We’re having trouble holding on to qualified bodyguards.”

  I bark out a laugh. “You want me to be a bodyguard? Seriously?”

  “It’s good pay and only one or two evenings a week, though there are occasional clients who need short-term round-the-clock service.”

  I move back to where she stands. “And what makes you think I’m qualified?”

  “I was told you’re ex-military.”

  “You were told wrong,” I say, holding her gaze and waiting for the reaction.

  She arches an eyebrow at me. “Then you tell me. Are you qualified?”

  “Probably. What’s qualified?”

  “Someone proficient in firearms and hand to hand, who can carry himself in a highly professional manner and keep his head under pressure.”

  “That sounds like my life,” I mutter.

  “Doing?”

  I give her a cynical smile. “I could tell you, but then I’ll have to kill you.”

  Her smile is just as cynical. “Not if I kill you first.”

  This woman is a firecracker. “Who are you?”

  “How rude of me,” she says, pressing a hand to her chest in an I’m-so-shocked gesture. She holds it out to me. “Elaine Spencer.”

  “Who flies the jet?” I ask, shaking her hand.

  She gives me a sideways smile. “My pilot … unless that’s a skill set you possess as well.”

  There’s a pang in my chest as I think about Sherm. He wants to be a pilot when he’s older … or at least he did, before all this started. “Who are your clients?”

  She slicks back a strand of her long, black hair. “Celebrities and wannabes mostly, and the occasional politician or businessman.”

  “You’ve got yourself a bodyguard.”

  “Why don’t we start with the application first.” She turns for the offices. “Follow me.”

  I follow her into the first door and find a sofa along the back wall pointing at a flat-screen TV. There is a rack of DVDs on the table under the TV. I move to the stack and look at some of the names scrawled across the cases in sharpie.

  “Wow. You weren’t kidding about celebrities.” I turn to look at Elaine. “What are these DVDs of?”

  “We run through itineraries a week before the event for security issues that need to be addressed prior to a client’s arrival. We keep the tapes for training purposes.”

  “Thorough,” I say, picking up a case dated last week and labeled Tiger Woods.

  “Have a seat. I’ll be right back.”

  She disappears through a door in the back of the room as I settle into the sofa. When she comes back a few minutes later, she’s got some papers on a clipboard. “This is our basic employment application, and a psychological screening.”

  I’m reaching for the clipboard and yank my hand back. “Whoa, back up a second. Psychological screening?”

  “Some of our applicants are a little too high-strung. We need to be sure you’ll be able to handle yourself in pressure situations with lives potentially on the line.”

  Been there, done that. It didn’t end well.

  The look on my face must stay it all, because she tips her head at me. “Is that going to be a problem?”

  I take the board from her hand. “No.”

  “There’s also a drug screening.”

  “Can’t guarantee I’m going to pass that,” I say, flipping through the papers on the clipboard.

  “You a user?”

  I shrug up at her. “Recreational.”

  “We use a urine test, so if you’ve been clean for a few weeks you should be okay. But be warned, I withhold the right to test randomly. It’s in your employment contract. So if you give me any reason to think there’s an issue, you better believe I’ll have you peeing in a cup before you can say ‘cut me a line.’” A slightly nefarious smile curves her lips. I decide I like her. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  I start on my paperwork.

  A minute later, she’s back with a steaming mug in her hand. “I forgot to ask if you wanted cream or sugar.”

  “Black is great,” I say.

  She hands me the mug. “I’ll leave you alone. Just find me at the end of the hall when you’re done.”

  I down the co
ffee in a few gulps and work on the application. When I get to the psych questions, I laugh out loud more than once. I mean, are they serious when they ask shit like: Do you believe you have more difficulty with relationships than the average person your age?

  Let’s see … I’m twenty-five. I’ve dated models and movie stars, but I’ve never had a serious relationship. I’ve been hiding from a backwater schoolmarm for two weeks because she’s one of the very few things on this planet that scare she living shit out of me.

  … But let’s say no to that one.

  Next we have: Do you have difficulty trusting people? Only when I don’t know if it’s the good guys or the bad guys who are trying to kill me. Then there’s: Do you prefer to be alone rather than in the company of others? Definitely. If you answered yes to the previous question, is it because you feel very anxious in social situations, or because you are suspicious of their motives? Me, suspicious? Hell no.

  I roll my eyes and wonder if anyone answers these fucking questions honestly.

  When I’m done lying my ass off so I don’t sound like a paranoid schizophrenic, I take my paperwork to the end of the hall. The door is open. I step inside. Elaine’s got her bare feet up on the desk in front of her, pecking away on a laptop.

  “Done,” I say, holding up the clipboard.

  She rolls her chair back, slides her heels on. “You’ve handled a gun?”

  I’m not sure what the right answer is, so I decide in this instance to be honest. “Yeah.”

  “You own one?” she asks.

  I reach behind me and pull my Glock out from under my shirt.

  She puckers her glossed lips and her eyes widen. “Nice. You keep it handy.”

  “When I can.”

  “You have a concealed weapons permit for that?” she asks with a quirk of one eyebrow.

  That’s one thing the Feds didn’t supply me with. Don’t think they’d be thrilled to know I carry it around with me. “No, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am,” she laughs under her breath. But then her expression goes serious. “You’re not a convicted felon, are you?”

  “No.” The Feds had never been able to pin anything on my family until the raid. And even then, they only got Pop on white-collar stuff—money laundering and tax evasion.