The Dysfunctional Valentine

by Hadena James

  “Oh my god,” I said as the lady at the cash register rang us up.

  “What?” My mother gave me a blank look. I pointed to the total.

  “A lot of it was on sale,” she remarked before handing the woman her credit card.

  “If that was the sale price, I can’t imagine the real price,” I muttered to Kenzie and Alex.

  “Buying a whole new wardrobe is expensive,” Kenzie shrugged. Neither of them seemed phased by the four digits before the decimal point.

  We repeated the routine at the shoe store. I left with seven pairs of sandals that I would never wear, a couple sets of dress shoes, two pairs of new tennis shoes, and a pair of flip flops with butterflies on them that I would also never wear, even if my life depended on it.

  As we left the shoe store, Alex’s iPhone buzzed. I hadn’t gotten the hang of smart phones and still used an older flip-phone model. I stared over her shoulder at the number. The screen informed me it was Ivan. I sighed.

  “This is Alex,” Alex always answered her phone that way.

  I couldn’t hear what Ivan was saying, although not from trying. I kept trying to push my ear close to Alex’s phone. She kept pushing me away.

  “Well, the spa day was as expected. We’re shopping now. It will take us a while to get back to the house,” Alex finally said.

  “What? What’s going on at my house?” I asked, butterflies forming in my stomach.

  “No, we didn’t find anything,” Alex assured him, sounding worried.

  “What? What?” I was practically dancing around her now.

  “Ok, we’ll be there as quickly as possible,” she hung up and looked at me.

  “What?” I practically yelled.

  “Someone attempted to break into your house. They escaped, but Ivan will be checking hospitals. The police found blood on two of the Danes, none of it dog blood.”

  “Sure it was the house?” I asked, thinking of them opening the doors.

  “Well, no, not necessarily. It could have been your mom’s car and the dogs got out of the house again.”

  “Who did the biting?” I waited.

  “Anubis,” Alex answered.

  “Poor guy,” I did feel sorry for the bastard. Anubis was my largest Dane. He was jet black and had very sharp teeth. “How did he get the dog off?” My stomach flopped.

  “It seems they stun gunned him. The police responded to the alarm going off and found Anubis twitching on the ground. There was a car chase, but they lost them . There is a CSU team at the house, trying to collect evidence from the dogs. They had to call Ivan in to get them to settle down and let them do anything. Ivan thinks it would be good if we came home.”

  “I believe that,” my dogs were loyal and while they would tolerate Ivan, they wouldn’t let him in the house without me.

  Considering Anubis had been stun gunned, he was in good spirits when we pulled into the drive. He jumped and danced around, anxious for me to get out and give him praise for his good work. I did exactly that.

  Loki followed, rubbing against me, nuzzling into me. I was guessing he was the second biter. Loki and Anubis were good trackers but they were better attack dogs.

  “This is getting out of hand, do we know what kind of drugs they are looking for?” I asked Ivan.

  “Cocaine, a couple of kilos. From what I understand it is pure cocaine, it hasn’t been cut yet. It’s worth over a million dollars on the market.”

  “And somehow mom got involved?”

  “Yes, we are going to put guards at the house…” Ivan started.

  “Completely unnecessary. The Danes are quite capable,” I interrupted him.

  “That’s true,” Ivan looked at Anubis. “I used to think you were crazy for owning six of these things. I’m starting to understand.”

  “One is scary, six is terrifying and even if you get the upper hand on one, you have five others to deal with,” I explained without needing to.

  “My thoughts exactly. We are hoping to search the house.”

  “Go ahead,” I told him.

  The dogs found nothing in my house. The police found nothing in my house. Everyone left with the idea that the drugs had been moved and nobody knew it. Ivan was betting they had gone missing during the robbery at the bar.

  I sat down, put in AvP Requiem and threw treats to all the dogs. No one said anything about my movie choice. No one said anything at all. They busied themselves with other things. Alex and Kenzie played Scrabble. Melina and Telisa began washing and packing my new clothes.

  We were all stressed and on edge. At a little after seven p.m., my mother called my brother Devlin and gave him food instructions. He showed up an hour later with take out from a Mexican restaurant that was sort of close. He didn’t stay, Mom and Telisa shooed him away after reimbursing him and tipping him for dinner.

  “Crazy women,” Devlin muttered, walking away and looking at the tip money in his hand.

  After dinner, I slathered back up with the soothing cream and sat on the bathtub for another thirty minutes. Kenzie knocked on the bathroom door. I let her in.

  “Doing ok?” She asked.

  “Not in the least.” I stuck my hand out. She dug a cigarette from her purse and handed it to me. I lit it up and smoked it.

  “Kenzie, stop smoking in the bathroom,” Melina said through the locked door.

  “Nadine said I could as long as the fan was on,” she answered with a smile.

  “Well, make sure you turn the fan on.”

  Kenzie stood up, turned on the exhaust fan and sat back down. A few minutes later, Alex knocked on the door. Kenzie let her in after taking the cigarette from me. As Alex came in and sat down on the toilet lid, I took the cigarette back.

  “One of those days?” Alex pointed at the cigarette.

  “One of those weeks. If someone had a joint, I would probably smoke it.”

  “It would make you sick,” Kenzie told me.

  “That’s probably true. So I’ll smoke this, get a buzz and hope it kills me before the wedding.”

  “I think Ivan’s wrong,” Alex said as I made her move to shove the cigarette butt in the toilet.

  “Me too. But where the hell are they? The dogs didn’t find them, the police searched the house and car and didn’t find them,” Kenzie shrugged.

  “That’s looking better,” Alex said as she flushed the toilet and pointed at my crotch.

  “I guess I just don’t know how to use the soothing cream. Telisa’s feels weird; it is sort of tingly and just odd.”

  “It has peppermint in it,” Kenzie said, looking at it. “Other than that, it has more Aloe than the one they gave you at that spa.”

  “Great,” I told her.

  “Tomorrow, we search ourselves,” Kenzie put the jar down.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Alex took hold of Kenzie’s purse and pulled out a cigarette. “Want another one?”

  “No, I’ve got a good buzz going,” I told her. Alex lit the cigarette. The nice thing about being a non-smoker is that tobacco is all that is needed to get a buzz. I knew it caused lung cancer and heart disease and other bad things, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to live that long, so sneaking one a couple times a year didn’t seem like such a big deal.

  Alex had quit smoking almost fifteen years earlier, but every once in a while, she would still sneak one. Usually when we were drinking. Kenzie must have had the same thought as me. She opened her purse and pulled out a small bottle of whiskey.

  We passed it amongst ourselves, taking shots. It didn’t take long to finish it, but it was enough to make us giggly.

  “What else do you carry in that thing?” I tried to peek inside the purse.

  “Gun, stun gun, mace, vodka, and extra lighters.”

  “Practical,” I told her.

  “Very,” she said with a smile.

  Thursday

  Thursday found tools in all our hands. We were determined to see if the police had missed the cocaine. We started with Melina’s car.
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br />   Alex and Kenzie were popping off door panels while I worked on the trunk area. My mother and Telisa were wringing their hands and shouting words of encouragement to us. Most of them started with “what’s that?” or “who is going to put this back together?”

  Five hours later, we had completely removed all the parts from the inside of mom’s car. They were lying in piles around the car. I was certain we would not be able to put it back together.

  Kenzie and I had even removed the seat covers. Alex had gone through the engine compartment, understanding the inner workings of the car more than Kenzie and I.

  We had come up with nothing but more parts that we couldn’t put back on. We didn’t tell my mother this.

  “What’s for lunch?” I asked, my stomach growling.

  “What?” Melina asked.

  “Lunch, what’s for lunch?” I repeated.

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of it, I guess we will go cook something,” Melina took Telisa back inside.

  “So, not in the car,” Alex answered.

  “If you had a couple of kilos of pure cocaine worth a million dollars or more, wouldn’t you put a tracking device on it?” Kenzie asked.

  “Yes, that’s why I don’t think they got the drugs,” Alex answered.

  “That was my thought. So, where is it?” Kenzie looked at the car parts.

  “What kind of cocaine is worth a million dollars for a couple of kilos?” I asked.

  “You’d be amazed what the cartels think up,” Alex told me.

  “I don’t deal with cartels very often,” I reminded her. My dealings tended to be with the Mob or the Russian Mob or people with money and no scruples. Oddly, this didn’t include cartels.

  “Here’s the plan, we eat lunch, then we go through Melina’s luggage and whatever bags she brought into the house from the mall,” Kenzie got back on task.

  “Sounds good,” Alex led the way into the house.

  My lunch was even more pathetic than the day before. Asparagus, steamed with a little bit of pepper on it, baked Brussels sprouts with olive oil and a touch of salt and the main dish, carrots and green beans steamed with thyme, basil and garlic. I ate it thinking about a nice juicy cheeseburger from Freddy’s Steakburgers and onion rings. Or a roast beef sub from Jimmy John’s.

  After lunch, we invaded the guest room my mother had been occupying for the last week. Kenzie went through her wardrobe. Alex went through the luggage bags she had brought it in with and I went through the shopping bags.

  Since we knew my mom wasn’t hiding drugs in the wall or under the floor, we didn’t bother to destroy the room like we did her car. We still found nothing. I frowned at the girls. They frowned back.

  “That leaves the purse,” Kenzie said.

  The three of us tromped downstairs. Carefully, we removed the gun, the stun gun, the mace and a set of brass knuckles that I had added when I thought we were taking it shopping the day before. After we emptied it, we sat it back down on the counter and all put our heads down.

  “I give up,” Alex groaned.

  “We missed something, we had to have,” I told her, trying to bolster her confidence.

  “What, Nadine? What did we miss?” Alex didn’t lift her head, but Kenzie did.

  “Does anyone smell coffee?” She asked.

  “Now that you mention it, I do,” Alex commented.

  “Me too.”

  “Melina, did you make coffee?” Kenzie asked.

  “Not since this morning dear,” mother answered.

  “I smell fresh coffee,” Alex picked her head up.

  “Me too,” Kenzie frowned.

  “So what?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you ever watched Beverly Hills Cop?” Alex asked.

  “Nope,” I told her.

  “They hid drugs in coffee beans, it throws off the dogs, makes it hard to smell. And while it was a movie trick, it does work that way to some degree. Enough coffee and the dogs can’t smell the drugs. It clogs their sinuses,” Kenzie told me.

  “Why do you two know so much about drugs?”

  “Private detectives,” Kenzie answered.

  “Fine, great detectives, where is the coffee smell coming from?” I asked.

  “Your purse,” Alex grabbed hold of it. Kenzie did too.

  “It’s awful heavy,” Kenzie commented.

  “It’s the size of a tote bag and it has rhinestones and is made of leather, it weighs a ton,” I told her.

  “It is large enough to hide a couple of kilos of coke in,” Alex said.

  “And it explains why they stole your purse at the club and tried to steal Nadine’s outside Natalia’s. It also explains why they were in Melina’s car. They were trying to lay a trap,” Kenzie said.

  “And we left the purse here yesterday and they tried to break into the house, but were thwarted by the Danes. They were probably trying to sneak in the other day when the Danes chased them into the car,” Alex grabbed her cell phone.

  “Ivan, shut up, Nadine’s purse smells of coffee,” Alex said when my brother answered the phone.

  There was a long pause.

  “She picked it up at a garage sale. But Ivan, it smells strongly of coffee. It’s big enough to hide a couple of kilos in. We think they are after Nadine’s purse.”

  Another long pause.

  “Ok, we’ll see you when you get here,” Alex hung up.

  “It took you a week to figure out the drugs were in that purse, not very good detectives, are you?” I gave them a grin.

  “We’ve been stressed,” Alex grinned back.

  Gunfire erupted, breaking the spell created by the good news. One of my windows in the kitchen shattered and Anubis jumped onto the counter and went through the broken glass. Baldur broke another window and headed out a different direction. The other four dogs picked their spots and made a break for it. Literally in two of the cases, with Loki going through the sliding glass door and Set broke the picture window in the living room. Loki fared the worst, he crashed through the glass and lay on the ground for a second. He stood slowly, shook himself then took off running.

  More gunfire. I grabbed the purse and headed upstairs. Alex and Kenzie at my heels. Melina and Telisa were following just because they weren’t sure what else to do.

  A whimper came from the tree line; it was followed by a human scream. I took position at a window. Marduk had hold of someone and was dragging him out of the woods by the leg. The guy fired blindly at the Dane. Marduk would whimper and drop down, but he didn’t let go. I fired a shot at him, hitting him in the arm. He dropped the gun, which was good, because if he shot Marduk, I would probably end up killing him. I didn’t like it when the Danes got shot.

  Alex slunk to another room, taking a position at a different window. There was more gunfire. The windows downstairs and the walls of my house were being peppered with bullets.

  “Mom, call 9-1-1 and call the security agency,” I yelled at her. She fumbled with the phone. Melina called the emergency services. Telisa called the security agency.

  Someone appeared at the edge of the trees and took aim at Marduk. I fired on him, saw him stumble and fall to the ground.

  “I’ve got Anubis in sight,” Kenzie yelled from somewhere else in the house.

  “Make sure he doesn’t die,” I shouted back. I heard Kenzie pull the trigger on her gun.

  This was followed by a rifle shot and a “woo-hoo” from Alex. I wondered how she had gotten in my gun-safe for a moment, but it was quickly pushed out by Loki coming out of the woods. His mouth was covered in blood and it dripped down the front of him.

  Sirens. I could hear sirens. So could the dogs, they kicked into high gear. Loki and Marduk both ran back into the woods. I couldn’t see them for the trees, but I could hear them baying and howling. The sound was enough to terrify anyone.

  Another man emerged, Loki was firmly clamped onto his arm, shaking it. The man was screaming. If he had a gun, he’d dropped it. Marduk was growling at him, approaching him, herding
him into the clearing.

  “I think Set is hurt,” Alex yelled.

  “Mom, check on Set, use the window,” I ordered my mother. She didn’t move, still on the phone with emergency services. Telisa crab walked out of the room, heading for Alex.

  “I don’t think it’s his blood,” Telisa yelled to me.

  My heart skipped a beat. That was very good news. It also meant that someone was probably bleeding to death somewhere.

  The sirens stopped. I could hear people yelling from the trees. I put my gun down.

  We all went downstairs, guns at our sides. Alex was carrying one of my rifles. I gave her a look, she shrugged.

  Ivan showed up. We headed outside. He frowned at me. I handed him the purse. He took a box cutter from someone and opened up the lining. Ground coffee spilled out along with three kilos of cocaine.

  “Damn,” I said.

  “We have at least three dead bad guys. I think your Danes are responsible for two of them. There may be an inquiry.”

  “I have signs posted about attack dogs on the premises,” I answered.

  “You’re very lucky they were here,” he responded.

  “Why?”

  “Not only are there three dead, there are eight others suffering from dog bites, serious dog bites. Two of the dead guys had their throats ripped out.”

  “Shouldn’t have been firing on my house. The dogs freak out when there is gun fire. They are trained to go on the attack at the sound,” I shrugged and regretted it.

  “There is going to be a lot of paperwork on this one Nadine.”

  “I know. But mom bought it at a garage sale, how were we supposed to know it had drugs in it?”

  “Yeah, we’re going to need to know where that garage sale was,” Ivan gave mom a look.

  “Oh no, I’m not asking. I am going to the police station. I will help fill out paperwork and give statements until my ears bleed, but I am not going to interrogate mom.”

  “We could flip for it,” Ivan suggested.

  “I don’t think it’s in my job description,” I gave him a determined glare.

  Animal control showed up and took all six Danes into custody. I called the vet, he agreed to meet them at the animal lock-up. I looked at my brother.