Lucky in Love

by Brockmeyer, Kristen

  It didn't really sink in, except for a tightening of the ball of dread in my stomach, and I turned to the next page. It was brief, but to the point.

  Lucky,

  I'm sorry. I couldn't think of any other way to keep you safe, and I'm sure you'll hate me, but I don't care. You'll be alive to do it and Dominick will be dead and won't be able to hurt you. I love you. I've always loved you. I've been carrying that ring around with me since around the time I decided to come back for Jack's wedding. I figured you'd like it because it's old and I knew it was yours when I saw it because it's unique and beautiful, just like you. I wish I could have given it to you in person. I wish I'd had more time to convince you to wear it for me.

  Chance

  Furious anger welled up, choking me, and scalding tears spilled over to run down my cheeks. When I thought he was joking that morning about marriage, he was serious. The jerk wanted to marry me before he even thought he might have knocked me up. He came back to Kalamazoo wanting to marry me. And he'd left again anyway, without even dropping the love bombshell in person.

  Chapter 38

  Mrs. Claus —Betty—put a hand awkwardly on my arm. Suddenly, I was sobbing, bent over and crying on her shoulder. She just gave me a strong hug and let me go for a few minutes, rubbing my back soothingly. She smelled like lavender and menthol cigarettes and I was reminded for a second of Julian.

  Finally, I pulled away and, lacking anything better, I lifted the corner of the comforter and wiped my face. I blew my nose on it before I remembered I was standing in front of the person that had to clean the thing.

  "I'm sorry," I blurted.

  Betty shrugged philosophically. "There's been nastier things done on that." I shuddered instinctively and dropped it.

  She was watching me intently, and I wondered what six kinds of hell I looked like and what she must be thinking.

  "You're going after Dominick?"

  I stared at her. "You know him?"

  "Everyone knows who he is. He makes the news every other week for some shady shit or another."

  That didn't explain the glitter of very personal hatred in her eyes.

  "I can get you to him."

  "How?" I replied, incredulous. "Does he own this motel, too?"

  She laughed bitterly and I saw that her small fists were clenched. "No, Motel 6 isn't really his style. But I know where he lives. Not a hideout. His actual home."

  "Are you… his housekeeper or something?" I wasn't following how this random person—probably someone's foul-mouthed but kind of sweet little grandmother—could lead me to a crime lord's secret lair. She drew in a shaky breath.

  "My daughter's oldest girl, Ashlynn, got tangled up with him. She was the sunniest, prettiest little thing when she was little…" Her eyes teared up. "But she grew up with a momma no better than she should be, I'm sorry to say, in a trailer park outside of town. Got in with a tough crowd in high school. I moved her in with me for a year or so, and she signed up for college classes, but Dominick picked her up one night in the nightclub she was waitressing at. With her looks, it didn't surprise me that she'd catch a man's notice. I didn't know who she was seeing at first. She quit coming home nights and whenever I saw her, she was bubbling, happy, said she didn't have to go to school anymore. She had found a man to take care of her, she said, and after a month or so, she finally told me who he was. I tried to make her see reason…"

  Betty's smoker's voice got even harsher. "But she swore he loved her and he was going to marry her and she'd be moving into that mansion of his. We fought over it and she left. That was the last time I ever saw her. She's only twenty."

  I thought of the beautiful girls locked up at Dominick's secret "warehouse," and my throat tightened, tears burning the backs of my eyes for poor Ashlynn, a girl I'd never met, and was pretty sure I never would.

  Betty took a second to visibly collect herself, and her coral-lipsticked mouth firmed. "That was almost two months ago. I've been hounding the local police and they haven't done shit. But Ashlynn told me before she disappeared where that bastard lived, and I can take you right to him."

  A half-hour later, I was riding on the back of Betty's Harley—on the bitch seat, as she called it affectionately—clinging for all I was worth to her sturdy waist beneath her black leather jacket. We'd stopped briefly at her small, immaculate apartment, where she'd changed out of her work clothes and filled a backpack.

  Right now, I had a borrowed helmet on my head and a biker jacket that had belonged to Betty's ex-husband sometime in the seventies, from the looks of it, and fit surprisingly well. I hoped that it would keep at least my ruffly flowered tank top-clad upper half from turning into hamburger when I hit the pavement. The pedal-pusher jeans and cheerful yellow canvas flats I'd bought from Target with Angela what seemed like a lifetime ago wouldn't do squat to protect me. Betty drove like a demon and I figured a crash was inevitable with the way she whipped and wove through Vegas traffic. Strapped to my back was a bag that held enough firepower to take down a jungle full of elephants.

  Twenty minutes later, she pulled into a shopping complex in an upscale neighborhood and around the back. Gliding to a stop behind a Whole Foods, she parked near a dumpster, cut the engine and took her helmet off, her permed silver curls bouncing loose.

  We got off and she wheeled the bike between the dumpster and the brick wall of the building. I took my own helmet off and the fetid smell of garbage blasted me in the face. I gagged a little and held the cuff of the jacket to my nose, the aged leather masking the garbage smell a little bit. Betty stashed our helmets in the saddlebags and motioned for me to follow her.

  "Damned bike better be where I left it when we get back," she muttered before disappearing into a scrubby stand of woods at the back of the parking lot. I followed her, hoping that I hadn't hooked up with a crazy woman who was taking me into somewhere to kill me, and tickling her own sense of irony by making me carry the gear for it.

  Even though it was midafternoon, it was shadowy and blessedly cooler in the pinyon trees. I was a Michigander. The unseasonably-warm-for-Vegas heat had me wilting. I still felt sweat trickle down my back to soak into the waistband of my underwear. I missed drizzle. Heck, back home, it could be snowing.

  I couldn't make out a path, but Betty moved ahead of me steadily, seeming to know exactly where she was headed. I envied her confidence. I had no idea how the two of us were going to pull this off.

  "Betty, wait," I hissed. "Let me use your cell phone. I need to make a call."

  Angela didn't answer her phone, but I left a message letting her know what was happening, and then we were off again. Betty called a halt to our progress about ten minutes later. There was an opening in sight, carpeted with verdant green grass. I wanted to strip my clothes off and roll in it. I was hot and thirsty, skin prickling in the heat, and it looked so cool and inviting.

  "Is that a golf course?" I whispered.

  "It's the edge of his property," she replied, pulling the backpack off my shoulders. Unzipping it, she pulled out two water bottles and I drank the lukewarm liquid greedily, downing half the bottle before coming up for air.

  "No barbed wire? Rabid Dobermans patrolling?"

  "Sonovabitch is too cocky for that," Betty scowled. "Cameras, though, I'd bet."

  She rummaged around in the bag and started pulling things out. Knives, guns, canisters that I assumed held pepper spray. Even something that looked a lot like a taser.

  She tossed me a wide leather belt with lots of hooks and loops on it and I caught it awkwardly, still clutching my water bottle like a lifeline. "Buckle it up," she ordered, stripping out of her jacket and fastening it around her sturdy, jean-clad hips.

  "Where did you get all this stuff?"

  "The ex got sent to prison for manslaughter back in '01. That's why he's an ex. He was a militia type, believed that the country's infrastructure was going to collapse with Y2K, and he stocked up on weapons. Taught me how to use them, too," she assured me grimly.

 
I couldn't reconcile the image of this harmless-looking woman training in end of the world combat, but I'd have to be a moron not to realize that there was a lot more to Betty Tuttle than met the eye. I was just glad I wasn't going in empty handed and all by myself.

  "So what's the plan," I asked nervously, after she'd given me a quick but competent tutorial on the weapons I was to carry in the loops and holsters of my belt.

  Betty shrugged. "I figure we'll just walk in. I'm sure they'll see us coming, but we'll wear our jackets to cover up most of this stuff and count on that as our element of surprise. Hopefully, that SOS call you put out will get some backup on the way."

  I quailed inwardly. This was suicidal. We were hanging our hopes on a frantic voicemail I left on Angela's phone. But knowing Chance, Addy and Jack were in there, I knew I didn't have a choice. I just prayed we'd die quick, if it came to that.

  Chapter 39

  Betty and I ended up strolling across the yard like we were a couple of misplaced houseguests with every right to be there. Manicured lawn stretched in every direction, and it must've taken a battalion of sprinklers to keep them so lush and green. A swimming pool stretched wide across a patio that ran the length of what looked like a transplanted Italian villa, and twinkled invitingly in the midday sun.

  Tiny Juliet balconies decorated tall, arched windows, but I didn't see any furtive bad guys peering out. Potted plants on pedestals spilled brightly-colored flowers down to the flagstone patio beneath them. We headed for a massive pair of French doors big enough to drive an RV through. My hands shook uncontrollably and I was afraid I was going to throw up.

  Betty didn't seem to be suffering from nerves. She marched right up and turned the handle, and the door swung open. I shivered. Cool, air-conditioned air rolled out, and it might as well have carried the smell of brimstone and sulfur. The devil was in there.

  I followed Betty through into a marble-floored room filled with orchids. Apparently, someone had a thing for them. The spindly stalked flowers were everywhere, seeming to reach toward us, and the heady scent of so many of them in one place was staggering. A winding walkway led through them and Betty disappeared around a curve ahead. I had to doublestep to keep up.

  When I rounded the turn, I skidded to a stop. The path abruptly widened into a sitting area with vaulted ceilings and there were three men standing there. The two in suits to either side had guns trained on Betty, and Betty, outstretched arms gripping her Glock 9, had hers trained on Dominick in the center. Dominick was just standing there, an amused grin quirking his lips slightly, looking suave, with a poise that Cary Grant would have envied.

  "Welcome to my home," he said, flicking his cold eyes toward me. "Lucky, you do have a knack for finding spry geriatric companions, don't you? But I'm afraid I have little patience for people who walk into my house and point guns at me. Please introduce me to your plucky friend before Marco and Gerard here accidentally shoot her." I didn't know if it was Marco or Gerard, but the man to my left laughed a little shrilly.

  I bristled and stepped forward to flank Betty on one side, but her gun arm didn't so much as twitch at Dominick's threat. "You know who I am, you sonovabitch," Betty said, her voice soft and even. "What did you do to my Ashlynn?"

  He lifted one dark eyebrow quizzically. "I'm afraid there's been some mistake. I have no idea what you're talking about. But if you don't put your weapon down, I'll have to call the police and have you arrested."

  Betty snorted and I quickly spoke up, afraid she'd give away that the FBI were hopefully on their way. "Now that would actually be helpful. Would you?" I was going for cool sarcasm, but my voice came out squeaky and ruined it. Marco-or-Gerard laughed again. More of a giggle really. Marco-or-Gerard sounded not quite right in the head.

  "At this range, I could easily shoot your balls off. Would that jog your memory?" Betty's gravelly voice was as calm as if she'd just commented on the weather.

  To Dominick's credit, he didn't alter his casual stance in the slightest at the threat or at least protectively cover said balls, but the grin fell away and his face hardened. Instead, he nodded his head sharply, wheeled around and walked away. When he reached the door, he looked back at me. "I thought you were so unusual," he said, sounding like a disappointed little boy. "I had hoped for a little more from you than this. Hiding behind a mouthy old lady to protect you." He looked back at Betty, the corner of his lips curving up in a sardonic smile again. "Instead, you're just like naïve little Ashlynn. She didn't put up any fight, either." Betty drew in her breath sharply and fired off a shot that boomed like someone set a mortar in my ear. But the bullet tore a harmless chunk out of the doorframe. Dominick was gone, the heels of his shoes clicking as he moving sedately off down the hallway.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the men move closer, grinning like a jackal. I didn't want to use the gun, but I was pretty sure he wouldn't politely hold still while I stunned him. And then Betty slammed her steel-toed boot down on my pretty yellow shoe.

  A bright flash of pain shot through up all the way to my shin and I yelped at the unexpectedness of it, dropping to one knee to clutch at my foot. Two more shots blasted out, followed by two nearly-simultaneous thuds, and when I looked up, Betty was already heading toward the door Dominick had disappeared through. To my right, the giggler was sprawled out on the floor, unmoving, a dark hole in the center of his forehead. His eyes were wide in surprise and his lips still stretched into a rictus of a leer. To the left, his companion had met the same fate, his arm flung out, fingers curved upward, his gun a few inches away. As I watched, one of the fingers twitched, and I had to swallow back a sudden and serious urge to puke.

  Betty Tuttle could have starred in her own freaking Quentin Tarantino movie. She was channeling Kill Bill. I scrambled to my feet. Another shot rang out in the hallway. I grabbed awkwardly for my own gun, fingers slippery with sweat as I flicked the safety off, and ran as fast as my crushed toes would let me.

  I tripped over Betty, which saved me from getting my head blown off. Plaster chunks rained down from where another bullet had plowed into the wall above me and my forward momentum carried me across the marble floor and colliding with a pair of beefy knees with brutal force. The owner of the knees crashed down backward, his head hitting the floor with an impact that sounded like a dropped cantaloupe. My gun skittered across the floor to hit the opposite wall and went off. I cringed and ducked back, my ears ringing from the noise, the acrid smell of gunpowder hanging in the air. A quick, panicky check found me free of bullet holes, and when I glanced cautiously over at the fallen man, I saw that he hadn't been as fortunate.

  Part of my brain shut down at that point, I think. I turned my back on him and crawled back to Betty. She was curled on her side and I touched her shoulder. Her voice was thready and breathless. "That's… one way to do it."

  She rolled over on her back.

  "Where are you hit?" I asked.

  "Chest."

  There was a singed hole in the leather of her jacket. I pushed the sides back and saw another blackened mark in the powder blue button down shirt beneath. My fingers flew down the buttons and when I shoved the shirt aside, I let out a relieved breath. No blood. Her black bulletproof vest had absorbed the impact, but depending on how close she'd been to the gun when it was fired, she could still have broken ribs or internal injuries. At the very least she'd had the wind completely knocked out of her.

  Her breathing was shallow and the pink of her cheeks was washed out to paper white. "I'm going to pull you back into the other room and lock the door," I decided. "You should be safer in there than out here."

  She tried to argue with me, and called me some nasty names between gasps, but I blamed it on pain and shock and didn't take it personally. I grabbed her under the arms as gently as I could and pulled her back into the orchid room, making sure her gun and taser were handy in case anyone else came that way.

  I retrieved my gun from the hallway, studiously avoiding looking at the dead man or
the blood puddle, and went back to Betty so she could show me how to reload the thing. Stuffing an extra handful of bullets in the pocket of my jacket, I handed her the phone and rattled off Angela's number.

  "Call her again. Keep trying until you get her."

  "Kill the fucker for me," Betty rasped out behind me as I quietly shut the door.

  Chapter 40

  I listened at the doorway, but couldn't hear anything over the rush of blood in my ears. Peering cautiously out in the hallway, I didn't see anything, either, except the body. A quick check the other way showed it was empty in that direction, too, and I carefully stepped over the guy on the floor, the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight up, going right, because that was the way Dominick had gone. I focused on my breathing, in and out, and kept the gun gripped straight in front of me. Cautiously, I checked each open door I passed, but found nothing but empty, opulently-decorated rooms.

  Time had slowed to a molasses crawl, and the hall looked like a mile-long tunnel in front of me, but I finally got to the end without dying. A small victory, I told myself. Now, I thought, I just had to figure out which way to go next.

  A wide open foyer opened out in front of me, with an ornately-carved front door, a set of curved stairs that went up to the second level, and another opening into the other wing of the house. I stood uncertainly for a second, straining my ears to catch any hint of footsteps or voices, but there was nothing.

  Chance, where are you? I could've groaned in frustration, but I was afraid to make any noise. Knowing I'd melt into a puddle of fear if I stood there any longer, I crossed the foyer, shoes silent on the cream-colored marble, underneath a glittering gold Art Deco chandelier that probably cost more than I made in a year. On the other side of the hall, I passed a small powder room, a study done in masculine green and burgundy, a few more empty bedrooms, a library and a kitchen. Dominick seemed fastidious enough to not want to do his dirty work in his private living quarters, which it looked like these were, but there were no handy cellar doors anywhere around either.