by Krista Wolf
I squinted hard. “And how do you know that?”
“Because they tossed his place twice trying to find it.”
And because they stationed Miller with him to look for it as well, I thought silently.
A gust of wind picked up, surging through the old gazebo. It whistled eerily through the broken teeth of the fancy upper cornices.
“Now that Connor’s dead,” said Maddox. “Think they’re still looking for it?”
The Chief Petty Officer spat again. He looked past us, at something on the invisible horizon, then nodded slowly.
“You can bet that until they’ve found it, they’re not going to stop.”
Forty-Four
DALLAS
The guys showed up not long after I’d ordered room service. It was a bitch not eating until they got there, but somehow I managed.
“How’d it go?”
“Tell you in a bit,” said Austin. He rubbed his stomach. “While we eat, of course.”
We were all famished. And tired. Exhausted actually, but who was keeping track anymore.
Maddox walked in behind him, sniffing the air. I had the balcony doors wide open. The sounds and smells of the growing crowd wafted in from outside.
“New sheets,” smiled Maddox, glancing around approvingly. “New blankets too.”
“We needed them,” I chuckled.
“Sure did.”
“You guys defiled me last night,” I said with a smirk. “The night before too, come to think of it.”
Austin cracked his knuckles before grabbing a spoon. He sat down at the little table before a big bowl of Jambalaya.
“If I remember correctly, you did quite a bit of defiling yourself.”
“Maybe,” I shrugged.
“Definitely,” insisted Maddox. “Not that we’re complaining, of course.”
He began lifting the metal tops and peeking into every dish. After fifteen minutes of agonizing over the menu, I’d ordered just about one of everything.
For the first few minutes I said nothing, I only let them eat. Maddox inhaled two hamburgers, while pushing the accompanying onion rings away. Austin picked at a little bit of everything, eating a bit from this plate, a bit from that one.
“No beer?”
I nodded to a stainless steel bucket down near the floor. It was filled with frosty cold bottles, surrounded by a whole sea of melting ice.
“You’re the bees knees, you know that?”
“I know.”
Austin twisted the cap off three bottles. He handed one to me and one to Maddox. I tilted my head back, letting the cool liquid slide down my throat. My mind wandered back to the previous nights events, which were somehow even dirtier and more carnal than the first evening we’d arrived.
My beer was half-finished by the time I slammed the bottle back against our little table. The carbonation still burned in my throat.
“So… about Connor…”
Maddox took a deep breath and briefed me on the day’s events. He talked about Woodward, their meeting, their ride back from the Naval base. About how Connor had been in imminent danger, and no one had done anything to help him.
It made me upset, then angry, then sad. I tried to keep things together, to understand why my brother had done what he did. To be angry, not at Connor, or even Woodward for not being able to help him; but at the people who’d taken away the last person who loved me, from my life.
“It’s not his fault,” said Maddox, echoing my own thoughts. “Woodward, that is. From what we could tell, he did what he could. He tried protecting Connor. We’re sure of that.”
Glumly I nodded. The whole thing was fucked, soup to nuts, front to back. I didn’t need to know the specifics of what Connor had been doing, only that he valued it enough to risk his life for it. The only real question I needed answered was who was responsible.
“We’re getting there Dallas,” Austin was saying. “It’s just gonna take a little time.”
I shoveled some scrambled eggs onto a piece of toast and popped the whole thing in my mouth. Though it was well past noon, I was still in the mood for breakfast. Hell, I’d only been up a little over an hour.
Last night had been… well, busy.
“What now?” I asked.
“We have a few things to tie up,” said Maddox. There was a double entendre in there somewhere. He gestured at our not-so-little banquet. “Right after this.”
“Like what?”
He shot Austin a quick glance. “Like checking out Connor’s last apartment again,” he said. “We didn’t get to see it all yet. Might be something we missed.”
I crunched down on some bacon and stood up. “Good. Let me shower, and—”
“Shower, yes,” Maddox interrupted. “Come with? No. You stay here.”
“The fuck I—”
“Dallas,” said Austin, “you can’t come everywhere with us. Besides, we need you to pack us up. We’ll be quick, less than an hour.”
My eyebrows went up. “We’re leaving?”
“Probably, yeah,” Maddox confirmed. “There’s nothing else for us here. We should get home, see what Kane’s managed to dig up.”
Home. Suddenly it was a good word again. A warm word. The thought of seeing Kane again excited me too.
I still wanted to come with them though.
I opened my mouth, a protest already cocked and loaded in my mind. But I was just too tired. Too exhausted to even argue.
“Fine,” I sighed, falling back onto the bed. “I’ll stay and pack up.”
Austin smiled. “Like I said, you’re the—”
“Bees knees,” I groaned, my mouth betraying the slightest hint of a grin. “Got it. Whatever the fuck that is.”
I rolled back into the softness of our latest comforter, the fresh scent of commercial laundry detergent still lingering across the surface. Stretching my arms and legs in four different direction, I groaned contentedly.
“When you guys get back…”
They both stopped eating at once. Very abruptly, I had their full attention.
“Defile me again?”
Austin casually dabbed his chin with a napkin. Maddox smirked.
“After all,” I purred. “We can’t let these fresh sheets go to waste.”
Forty-Five
DALLAS
The shower was baptismal; a near-scalding stream of blessedly hot water that cleansed me, mind, body, and soul. Too bad it couldn’t wash away my sins. Not with that water pressure, that’s for sure.
What sins, Dallas?
I laughed as I killed the water, then bent over to shake out my hair. Surely I’d done something wrong. Then again, I must’ve done something right too. As bad as I was, a girl didn’t end up in the position I was in without making a few good choices along the way as well.
It was a funny thing, having choices again. Finally being able to call my own shots, rather than roll the dice of fate. Since I’d lost Connor, things just sort of happened to me. My brother’s death, the loss of my home, my job, my life… the illusion of free will was gone, replaced instead by a series of terrible events beyond my control.
And now…
Now I had Maddox, and Austin, and Kane. Three men who I dared say loved me, or at the very least, were in love with the idea of keeping me safe from harm.
And I loved them as well.
The full realization had come to me last night, staring up at the ceiling. Nestled between them, feeling the slow rhythm of their breathing on either side of me… the whole ordeal had sparked some very deep thinking.
Was it okay to love them? Connor sure had. He’d loved them as friends, as comrades, as brothers.
And yet, for the four of us that ship had sailed. We were already way too far gone to go back. Too deeply entwined in the physical and emotional sense to ever pretend we hadn’t connected on the deepest of levels… or screwed each other’s brains out on a balcony overlooking an alleyway, deep in the French Quarter.
But yes, I loved
them for who they were, and for what we’d shared. I suspected it was this way with Connor too, I only wished I could’ve gotten to see my brother around them.
I thought about all these things as I stepped through our quaint little room, wearing the scratchy old bathrobe the hotel had provided us. I had a towel wrapped around my hair as well, as I stepped out onto the balcony and looked toward the Central Square.
Even now, the crowds were enormous. It was Sunday, the day of the Orpheus parade. The day before Lundi Gras. Two days before Fat Tuesday, when everything including the alley below me would go absolutely fucking berserk.
Damn. I sorta wished we’d be here to see it.
I leaned happily against the balcony, giving myself a few final minutes of relaxation before getting ready to pack up. I wanted to remember this place. Hell, I wanted to remember this balcony. This railing. This…
My thought process trailed off as I spied someone deep in the heart of the crowd. It was man. A very tall and lanky man, wearing what appeared to be some strange animal mask. He looked like every one of the other hundred people surrounding him in every direction.
Only this man was looking directly at me.
No, he can’t possibly be looking at—
I was sure of it.
I gulped and stepped back, still not taking my eyes off the masked stranger. He stood there staring back, completely immobilized. Totally unmoving and out of place, while the crowd surged and writhed and undulated around him.
Then he began walking toward me, and my heart skipped a few beats.
He doesn’t see you, the little voice in my head admonished. That’s impossible.
It sure didn’t seem impossible. Especially in that he was picking up speed. And he was still walking pointedly in my direction. Making a beeline for my exact alleyway, when he probably had a dozen others to choose from.
Dallas…
The man kept coming, and I realized my body was frozen in terror. My feet were glued to the balcony floor. All the muscles in my legs suddenly stopped working at once.
Dallas!
The masked man reached the edge of the square, then burst into the alleyway. My alleyway. He was practically running now, still coming up the sidestreet. Still headed with grim determination directly toward the door of our hotel.
He swiped at his face, and his mask flew off. My breath caught in my throat.
It was him.
By the time I recognized him he was already inside, already disappeared through the hotel’s main entrance. I could picture him sprinting, bounding his way through the lobby. Bursting into the stairwell, his long legs taking the steps three at a time.
Coming for me…
It was too late to stand there cursing my inaction. Our hotel was small, the corridors tight. Even worse, the elevator was slow and ancient. There was a chance I could make the stairs… but an equal chance he’d be coming up them, ready to take me.
Instead I locked the door, then engaged the slide-bolt. It was a flimsy piece of steel chain, but it was better than nothing. My hands betrayed me, dropping the chain three times before I finally slid it in. By the time I did, my heart was thundering out of my chest.
I had less than a minute to prepare for him.
With trembling fingers I fumbled at the nighttable drawer. Knowing, with ninety-nine percent certainty, I’d left my sidearm in the Bronco’s glovebox.
It slid open… totally empty.
SHIT!
I could hear footsteps now, pounding up the hall. I had only seconds. I ran to the bathroom, then frantically back into the main room again. My weapon of choice was pretty fucking ridiculous, but then again, it was better than nothing.
I stood behind the door, watching the doorknob, waiting for it to move. A good part of me was paralyzed by fear. But another part — the part that was growing increasingly pissed off at always having to run or hide — was just getting warmed up.
The vintage glass knob jiggled hard, but only for a moment. Then, after two seconds of silence, the door exploded inward in a shower of paint chips and splintering wood.
Forty-Six
DALLAS
The man with the stark white hair burst through the doorway leg-first, the momentum from his kick carrying him through. The noise was loud. Violent. In his haste he tripped on a few shattered pieces of the centuries old door, which threw him off balance, just for a moment.
But a moment was all I needed.
I screamed like a banshee as I brought the toilet tank cover down against the back of the intruder’s skull. It connected solidly, with a sickening, satisfying crunch. The strike practically brained him before he could recover, causing him to pinwheel across the room and slam head-first into the opposite wall.
Then he collapsed in a heap of blood and dust.
I looked down, and I was holding a jagged piece of porcelain. The top two-thirds of the toilet tank cover was gone now — shattered into a million pieces.
I dropped my makeshift weapon. The man was motionless. Lifeless. I sank back against the wall for support, wondering if maybe I’d killed yet another person who’d been trying to kill me.
God I hoped so.
I closed my eyes for a moment, reveling in a strange new feeling of superiority. The vainglorious triumph of having bested an enemy, in a contest at the highest of all possible levels: life or death.
Adrenaline surged through me, causing my limbs to shake. I wondered if it was like this for my Navy SEALs, too. If Maddox and Austin and Kane had experienced the same sort of feelings on the battlefield. The same euphoria and relief and exultation over an adversary, even sharing those feelings with my brother.
Dammit, Connor. Now you’ve got me killing people, too?
I swept my hair back with one hand, my fingers spread. No matter what I did, it kept flopping back over my face.
You should’ve stayed with us.
As time went on, I realized I missed my brother more and more. Perhaps that had something to do with the guys. They were keeping his memory alive for me, constantly talking about him, bringing him up. Not allowing me forget about him. Not letting the memories — or the pain that came with them — fade.
And just maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing either.
I reached for my brother’s pendant, to derive some measure of comfort and reassurance. It felt warm in my palm.
Connor, I wish—
A hand closed over mine! My eyes flew open, and what I saw was terrifying. The man was on me! He’d somehow crawled over, his eyes wild, his hair plastered to his head by a helmet of congealing blood.
“OHHH!”
I tried pushing him off, but he was too strong. Tried slipping out from under him, but he was too big. I pounded my fists against his back. Then his hands went for my neck, fingers splayed, trembling… reaching…
I kicked, and managed to pull away just enough that he missed. But his eyes, unfocused as they were, were gaining in strength and coherence.
Then he stood up.
“DALLAS!”
I whirled, and there was a blur of motion. Someone flew over me, crashing into the man head-first. They went sprawling across the room, in the direction of the balcony.
What the—
I saw Austin, off to my side. He had his pistol out, but he wasn’t aiming it. Instead he was turning it over in his hand, butt-first. He stepped forward, intending to use it as a club…
Whoosh!
The intruder slipped from Maddox’s grasp. Without looking back he vaulted over the railing and fell two stories into the street, landing with a hollow-sounding THUD!
A car alarm blared. We ran to the edge of the balcony, just in time to see the man getting up. Somehow, incredibly, a car had broken his fall. Or he’d broken the car, or they’d broken each other, or—
“No!”
Maddox’s hand shot out, just as Austin was about to fire. He closed it over his arm and shoved downward, diverting the sidearm’s barrel at the balcony floor.
; “Can’t do it man,” he gasped. “Too many people.”
Austin roared in frustration, screaming at the sky. Still, he knew Maddox was right. Together we watched the white-haired man flee through the alley, trailing droplets of bright red blood behind him. He headed immediately for the nearest group of party-goers. He reached the edge of the street and limped into the crowd, just another strange face melting into the chaos.
“FUCK!”
Austin was still pissed. He turned toward Maddox, his expression full of wrath.
“Couldn’t hold him,” Maddox said by way of apology. He held up a pair of blood-smeared hands. “Too slippery.”
A few people were staring up at us. Some of them had even cheered, probably drunkenly, no doubt thinking our struggle was all part of some little act.
Eventually we closed the balcony doors. It took another minute or two to calm down, and then the guys were on me immediately.
“Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, I’m okay. He— He came in, I mean he broke in, and we struggled, and—”
“What happened to him?” Maddox asked, looking around.
“I hit him.”
The guys were still incredulous. There was debris everywhere. Splinters of wood, pieces of door frame. Hundreds of jagged slivers of pure white porcelain…
“What the hell’d you hit him with?” Austin asked.
“Toilet tank cover.”
“Jesus Christ,” he swore in admiration. His smile finally returned. “Good one!”
“Thanks,” I breathed. “I saw it in a movie once.”
A young couple walked by in the hallway. They took one look through the broken door — at me still in my bathrobe, at the guys standing in the middle of the debris field — and kept on walking.
“We need to get out of here,” Maddox said. “And fast.”
I nodded, staring down at my blood-splattered robe. I turned in the direction of the bathroom, when I got hit in the chest with a small pile of clothes.