by Jared Paul
Travis blinked, not quite certain that he’d heard what he thought he heard. Did Bradley just confess to killing Maudette and Roger? He lifted his chin. “The one thing that gets me is the reason you had for killing them. It couldn’t possibly be that you wanted to keep it secret that you bribed the town council into keeping you in office. What a ridiculous motive.”
Bradley’s face contorted. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? Running around with my daughter, turning her into a whore. You think you have it all figured out. I’d be careful if I were you.”
There was more than a threat implied in Bradley’s voice, more than a father concerned for his daughter’s reputation. Travis had a mind to tell the man just what he thought of him or of just how much he was tired of playing hide the relationship, though judging by the way Bradley’s veins were popping out of his forehead, he’d wager he’d dilapidated his opportunity. He turned to head back down the drive, though before he walked off, he decided he’d have the last word.
“Have a good evening, Marshal.”
********
Abby didn’t know what she was thinking as she sat on Travis’ sofa, but the television program that flickered on the screen in front of her offered her a pleasant distraction as she stuffed her mouth with popcorn. It tasted like the best popcorn on the planet and she wanted to cry at how comfortable in Travis’ house she felt. She knew she didn’t want to go home to her father‘s castle, and that regardless of the thirty dollars she’d forked over to take her test in a shabby hotel that she couldn’t spend the night there either. The thought of the kind of creepy crawlies that might be wandering all over those commercial bed sheets had her skin considering leaving the flesh it was attached to. There wouldn’t be a shower on the face of the planet that could wash that kind of gross off of her.
She heard the lock at Travis’ front door snick and then it opened ever so slightly. Her eyes met Travis’ expression, which was a cute mix of surprise and pleased curiosity spiced with a slight dash of irritated annoyance.
She said, “You’re not mad, are you? I found the key you keep under your welcome mat.”
She nervously reached inside of her bag of popcorn stuck more of the salty stuff into her mouth.
Travis, his uniform fitting his body in a way it didn’t have a right to, leaned against his front door as it closed behind him, his lean muscular arms folding over his chest in characteristic fashion. He smelled like work and heat, but not in a way she found offensive. A slight waft of his aftershave tickled her nose and she inhaled it, greedy for all of it there was to have.
He answered her, “No, but you could have called me. I know you have a cell phone.”
Abby patted the empty space next to her on the couch and let her eyes plead with Travis to join her. He moved, exhaling a sigh as he ungracefully plopped down next to her. As if on cue, his feet rose and planted themselves on his coffee table.
“Travis”
“I have something to say first. I think I should get this out before I choose that it would be better for you if you don’t know about it.”
Abby had been on the verge of wrapping her arms around Travis so that she could nestle her body against his, but as soon as he interrupted her, her whole body stiffened in fear. Since the moment she’d realized she cared about Travis, since the second she understood that she didn’t want to let him go and that he belonged to her, she had the fear that he would eventually tire of her and set her next to the curb where all the other discarded females congregated.
“You can’t break up with me, I won’t let you. Don’t you dare tell me you don’t want me anymore.” She realized she was crying only when she heard the crack in her voice as it hitched in the back of her throat. After the day she’d had, this was something she couldn’t handle.
Travis turned the top half of his torso toward Abby and gently placed both of his hands on her shoulders. “There’s not a chance in hell of that happening, Abs.”
Abby frowned, feeling confusion cloud her thoughts. “Then what are you being so serious about?” She waited half a beat and then added, “Know what, let’s just not talk about it for now. I don’t think I can take anymore.”
Travis smiled and leaned forward and kissed Abby lightly on the lips. “It’s been that kind of day for both of us then.”
Abby had sat in Travis’ home going through how she would tell him that he was going to be a father, but looking into his face and feeling the heat of the moment, all of her ideas and well intentions went right through the window. She told herself that early pregnancy tests were often wrong, and that before she went and changed the nature of her relationship with a good man, that she ought to be sure. That, and looking at Travis’ handsome face made thinking difficult, period. The whole of her body reached out to him.
Travis pushed Abby’s shoulders until her back was resting comfortably on the couch. She lifted a leg and let it rest on his waist as he let his eyes roam over her. She was still wearing her nurse’s scrubs, and he’d always thought that the floral pattern made her look delicately feminine. So many other times, Abby dressed to kill, to flaunt her natural attributes, but it was when she was dressed like this that he found her the most attractive. She wasn’t trying to impress, she just was, and she looked incredibly soft and fragile and delicious.
He rest the flat of his palm on her knee and while he was staring down at her, her face placid and so innocent peering up at him, he had a moment where his heart bypassed his brain. “I love you.”
Abby had once thought that Travis was the kind of man that would spout flowery words at a woman so that she would let down her defenses and allow him in through the gates, but during the course of their relationship, he had never once thrown a term of endearment around lightly. He might have been the type to love and leave, but he had changed his ways with her. She hadn’t expected to hear him say anything remotely close to the ‘L’ word, but as her brain absorbed the information, she was stunned to silence.
“Abby?”
Abby felt a grin crack her face and she used her arms to push herself upwards from her rested position so that she could be level with Travis. Instead of tossing the words back to him, he let her lips glide over his as her hand twisted in his hair. Whatever tomorrow looked like, right now was all that mattered. She would show him with her body just how much she loved him. It was all she had, since she didn’t have the words.
********
Travis opened his eyes, feeling as rested as a man could be after the exercise he’d gotten the night before. He took a moment to familiarize himself with his surroundings and discovered that at some point, as Abby’s limbs entwined around him, that they had ended up in his bedroom. Abby’s discarded clothing trailed out into the living room and he smiled. He moved his hand and discovered that she was sleeping peacefully next to him, her soft breaths fluttering the pillow case against her face.
He sat up, found his pants and pulled them on, thinking that he should make some coffee before Abby woke up. The girl was one of the nicest women he’d ever known, but in the morning without a little caffeine, she was like a bellowing bull and charged anything that got in her way until she was given the heated liquid. In a way, it was endearing.
He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, too concerned with getting as much of Abby’s sleeping form as his eyes could take in, so he wasn’t too aware when the first of the punches that struck him hit his face and sent him stumbling to the floor.
The world upended and didn’t make sense. How had he gotten to the floor and why did his face hurt? Travis tried righting himself, tried to get back to his feet as a matter of reflex, but then something struck against his midsection and the air in his lungs was forced through his mouth like a popped air balloon. The thought occurred to him to fight back, that someone had gotten into his house and was now attempting to better him and succeeding. He knew how to defend himself, knew how to take a blow and counter, but all he could think about was Abby and how defensel
ess she was and what he wasn’t doing to protect her, even as a second and third blow rammed into his ribs and robbed him of the ability to inhale. He was on the floor permanently now, and he knew this because the carpet was against his face, scratching against his skin in a desperate attempt to keep him from losing consciousness.
“You should have kept to yourself, stayed in your place. Too bad, buddy.”
The voice was nothing close to familiar, and as he scrambled to make sense of things, his brain lost the battle and the lights for him, went out.
CHAPTER 17
………………………………..
“Welcome to the party, Sunshine.”
Travis tried his best to make his vision clear as he opened his eyes, but the pain in the rest of his body protested the action. He wanted to drift back into the bliss of unconsciousness, though a nagging tug at the back of his brain condemned him for the desire. He tried to take a proper breath to clear his head, found that he couldn’t and then he tried to move his arms and discovered that they were equally disabled.
“Oh, you can try to get free if you want to, but I’ll have you know no one has ever let themselves out of those nifty zip cuffs.”
Travis felt his face scrunch with the confusion, but the fog was stubborn and wouldn’t clear. Just what the hell was going on? A smell hit his nose and the implications stirred a fight or flight response in his entire body. The odor of gasoline was prevalent.
“Abby,” Travis began and found that the effort cost him and he began coughing.
Something was wrong with his chest, the pain he felt when he tried to inhale a second time told him that one of his ribs was probably broken. The boots that the man was sporting as he walked around were the likely culprits.
“Don’t bother with that, buddy. She’s on a vacation. Gave me one hell of a fight, I’ll give her that.”
The voice hovering around him was definitely annoying and too confidently snide for his liking. Travis forced his eyes open and saw that he was at his kitchen table, the lights were on and there was a man roaming around his home carrying a small gas tank with him. When he faced him, the man’s gnarled appearance was almost comical. It was too perfect that he was going to die by the hands of a man with a tree stump for a mug.
Since he didn’t have anything better to do, Travis decided that talking might be productive. He asked, “Who hired you?”
The man stopped what he was doing, put the gas tank down on the floor and cocked his head sideways. “Most people start begging me about now to spare their lives and all of that nonsense. You, my friend, are ahead of the game. Accepted your fate already, that’s good.” The man grinned. “You have your girlfriend’s father to thank for this. You pissed off the wrong man.”
“I knew that much. Did you kill the others too?” Travis would have scoffed, but he figured the action would cost him a few clear-headed seconds.
The man laughed. “That old lady and the redneck? Wasn’t difficult. A little cocktail and some patience and they gave out like old tires.” The man picked up the gas tank. “Trick is to keep your distance and let your work do itself.” He lifted the tank. “See this? By the time the fire guys get here to put you and your girl out, I’ll be gone and no one will ever know I was here.” He frowned. “Too bad about the girl. She wasn’t supposed to be here, but since she’s seen me, she’s gotta be taken care of. Can’t have loose ends.”
Travis turned his head to his left and found Abby next to him, bound to a chair, her head lolling to the side with her back to him. For one fierce second, he thought that she might be dead, though as soon as he saw her chest rise he felt his heart beating again. Even if this man didn’t have the intention of burning them alive, he had put his hands to Abby, and for that there wasn’t a force in nature that was going to keep him from trying to take that man out of existence. If there was a way to get his hands free, he’d be able to get to his feet, but even as he yanked and twisted his hands, he couldn’t feel any give in the plastic that bound him.
“How about doing this like a man instead of a coward? Why don’t you do this the right way, huh?”
The man put the gas tank down again and approached Travis. He slapped him hard, brutalizing his face and then lifted his chin. “You think our rematch would go in your favor, cowboy? Please. My employer wants you to suffer, and suffer you shall. I don’t have the luxury of kicking your ass twice. How you die doesn’t matter to me.”
He dropped Travis’ chin and Travis had to bite his bottom lip to keep from spitting his two coins at the man. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to yell insults at a person who held the whole deck, not just the proper cards.
As soon as the man was a good distance away from him, Travis began his questioning again, “Why were you hired to kill Maudette Lawson and Roger Daniels?”
“Why does the sun rise? I do what I’m told to do, what I’m paid to do. You go to work, get the job done and go home. So do I.”
Travis frowned. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. At this pace, he was going to see flames before a bright idea struck him. He asked, “Who are you? I think I should know the name of the person who’s going to set me on fire. It’s only polite.”
The man wagged his finger at him. “Uh uh, buddy. I make a good living because I keep that little bit of information to myself. What if you live, eh? You won’t be as pretty, but you’ll remember every syllable of this conversation after you look at your gruesome mug in a hospital mirror. I’m not stupid.” The man chucked some gasoline over the curtains in his living room, scoffed and added, “If you need something, you can call me Gun.”
Travis thought Gun’s made up name was probably in an effort to make up for having some sissy girl name like Heather. He opened his mouth to remark on the thought when he felt fingers tugging at the binds holding his hands behind the chair. Abby was awake.
********
Abby had been so blissfully asleep when she’d heard the struggle going on with Travis and the man with the leather coat. Leather coat guy had Travis on the floor, kicking him, and before she could scream and make herself a target, her brain had told her to remain still and quiet and not draw the man’s attention to her even as she saw Travis go still. At first, she thought that she was going to get away, that the man would go away and leave her alone since it was possible that he hadn’t even seen her. Not even a minute passed before she discovered that she wasn’t going to be that lucky.
She was pulled by her hair from the bed and dragged to her feet. She was greeted with a smile as her hair was released and a fist was drawn back and let loose to collide with her face. Darkness swallowed her and the next she knew she was listening to Travis play the most ridiculous game of twenty questions. Why anyone would want to chat up the man that was intent on burning you to death was beyond her; the fact of the matter was all that Travis could think of doing made her wonder just how hard the man calling himself Gun had hit him in the head.
For the long minutes that Travis was occupying Gun with small talk, Abby had pretended to be unconscious, all the while wiggling her fingers and trying to get at least one of them free. It was just her luck that her wrists were small, that Mr. Big Shot hadn’t taken into account that a woman’s hands were smaller and that her binds probably should have been tighter. She managed to free a few fingers from whatever it was her hands were tied with, but it wasn’t enough to win her any awards. Gun had had the foresight to not only tie her hands together, but have them bound behind her with the back of the chair between them. It felt hopeless.
Abby knew that it wasn’t going to be easy to free herself without being able to see what she was doing, and she realized that she’d gotten lucky with hers when after a few minutes she hadn’t even gotten even a single strand of Travis’ binds undone. It didn’t feel like there were any knots to untie.
“He’s in the back bedroom, look at me.”
Abby let her eyes take a break from their acting career, and she relaxed her tired fingers as she strai
ned to look at Travis. She saw his face twist as he got a good look at the purpling her flesh had done since Gun’s fist had connected with her face. Abby wished silently that she wouldn’t ever have to see the pained expression in Travis’ eyes or the lines of white hot anger that sharpened his features like a whetstone.
She whispered, “I’m okay, I promise.” She twitched her head to the side and said, “I can’t get your knots undone; I don‘t know what he‘s tied us with.”
Travis seemed to struggle underneath his binds for a few seconds before he gave up again. He whispered, “Is your arm free?” As the question left his lips his head snapped to the right and Abby knew that she needed to play dead once again. Gun was coming back into the room.
Abby desperately pleaded with her brain cells to come up with a solution to the situation they were in. She had a sinking feeling that they were going to die in horrible screaming agony and no one they loved were going to be any wiser until someone strolled down the sidewalk outside and smelled smoke from the human barbeque she was fixing to attend.