by C. L. Stone
Corey weaved an arm around my shoulders, tugging me away so I was out of hitting and spitting range. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Why the self-destruct mode? Is that what happened to Blake’s house?”
I hadn’t put the two together, and suddenly I realized he was right. The house was too cleanly destroyed to be a complete accident, or even done by someone like Alice. That kind of explosion required planning to do as little damage as possible to the surrounding neighborhood. Hope rose in me. “This wasn’t an accident?”
“Of course not,” Doyle said. “You think he’s that stupid? You all should be doing the same.”
Relief washed over me. Whatever his reasons for blowing up his own house, I didn’t care. I was just grateful he was alive. “Where is he?”
“Doyle! Honey!” A high-pitched masculine voice shouted from the porch.
I squinted up at a short miniskirt, tube-topped, mocha and blonde ex-bounty hunter. “Future? What are you doing here?”
She held up a file box, causing the tube top to drop a little too low across her left boob. “Girl! What are you doing here? Where you been?”
“I could ask the same. Are we Future or Fancy today?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been working on a new one. What do you think of Fairy?”
I shrugged. “Like in an ironic way?”
“There, you got it. See, he didn’t get it.” She nodded her head to Doyle. “And also, I was thinking glitter.” She shook the box she was holding. “We’ve been having fun. We about to bomb fire this motherfucker before we head to Jamaica. I bought marshmallows for the occasion.”
Doyle hissed through his teeth. “Shush, woman! You don’t tell the enemy where we’re going.”
She dropped the box on the porch and clunked down the stairs in her platform sandals. It was December, and while she might have forgot to dress for the occasion, her nipples knew it was cold and might have been the only things holding up that tube top. She put her hands on her hips. “She ain’t no enemy. That’s Kaaay-leeee. She’s part of this Bitchin’ A team.” She approached me, reaching for a hug. She spoke while she had her arms around me. “We’re practically twins.”
I pleaded silently to Corey over her shoulder. He shrugged and sheepishly brushed a palm across the back of his neck. No help at all.
Doyle turned back to me. “Christ help me. Two against one now.”
“I thought you were working for Mr. Murdock,” I said to Future.
“Naw, he’s got too many rules. Gotta stop cursing. Gotta stop carrying a gun. Gotta put more clothes on.”
“He does have rules,” Avery said. “But that’s because—”
“Of the stiffs, I know,” Future said. “One too many of them reached up my skirt and felt both of my guns. He had to let me go. I said it was for the best. There was about to be some marital disputes among his C. E. Hos.”
Avery rolled his eyes. “And she couldn’t talk to anyone.”
“Fuck those rules.” She turned to me. “So I asked Blakey and he said okay. At least he loves me for who I am.” She paused and blinked at me. “Hey where you get that sweater? You’re looking all classy.”
I’d forgotten about the clothes. It’d been a long day already. “Where is Blake?” I asked instead of answering. “I keep asking, but is he okay?”
“Oh, he’s somewhere,” she said. “He gave the execute command, and when that happens, we’re supposed to stay away from everyone. Except I’m going with Doyle. You all wanna come with?”
“No!” he said, crossing his arms in an X in front of his body. “No, no hellbeast.”
“You’re saying ‘Kayli’ wrong,” Future said.
“I don’t care. It’s just us. Follow the plan. We clear this out and we get to…where we’re going.”
“So Blake’s headed to Jamaica?” I asked.
“No,” Future said. “He’s… hmmm…” She sauntered up to Doyle, putting an arm around his shoulder and pushing her breasts into him a bit. “What you think, honey? Where might he be going?”
This seemed to calm Doyle out of his rage, and he ended up with eyeballing where the edge of the tube top kept lowering on her body. “We’re not supposed to know. You just pick a place and don’t talk about it. Like you weren’t supposed to tell them about Jamaica. Now we’ll have to pick another place.”
“Like Paris?”
“If you tell them, we can’t go.”
“Let’s just say Paris and then go to Jamaica. And then Paris. Come on, honey, please? Pretty please?”
I eyeballed them. “Are you…two…um…?”
Future wiggled her eyebrows, and Doyle’s normally pale face reddened immensely.
I coughed. “Sorry, I just…didn’t picture.”
“Look, it’s simple. She’s a woman, I’m a man. She’s got big boobs and likes to show them to me. What can I say?”
“What about her second gun?” I asked.
“Don’t judge me,” he hissed again through is teeth. “It’s modern times. I like her for who she is.”
Future pinched one of Doyle’s cheeks coyly. “And he loves my ass.”
I shared a side glance with Corey, who was grinning at this whole thing. “What triggered this execute mode?” he asked. “Something we should know about?”
He snorted. “Are you kidding? Alice is back. Old Mr. Murdock is in town.”
“We’re on to old Mr. Murdock,” Avery said. “Police are on to him. They’re looking for him now.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And we know about Alice. She called me.”
He stopped ogling Future’s boobs and looked right at me. “Alice called you? Where?”
“While I was in the hospital.”
He continued to stare at me. “Tell me what she said? What happened? When was this? Why didn’t I pick it up?”
I blinked repeatedly, looking at Corey. He shrugged, but I did my best to hide the fact that the hospital was Academy and told him everything else. “Blake walked in and said it should have been for him.”
Doyle blinked rapidly and then lunged for the box on the porch that Future had dropped. He threw it at the pile and then kicked the computer he’d dropped to the pile.
I got a little closer, chasing him. “What does it mean? What are you doing?”
He held up a hand to me, indicating I should stop. He took out a Bic lighter, and another cigarette from a pocket in his clothes. He lit the cigarette and took a few puffs before he held it to a sheet of paper he pulled from the pile. He lit the paper with his cigarette, taking forever with it, before putting it in the cardboard box. The fire went out quickly when a gust of wind picked up. “Shit,” he said.
“You need gasoline,” I said. “Or turpentine.” I paused. “Why isn’t this house rigged to blow up?”
“It’s an antique,” he said. “Predates your Civil War. You don’t blow up an antique.”
“Blake’s house was an antique.”
“His house was a remodel. Got destroyed during the war and a couple of hurricanes. It’s the only way he could make it over so much. Historical society just gave up.” He looked back at Future and Corey and Avery, who were talking together near the car. “Do me a favor?”
I blinked rapidly in surprise, catching a bit of his smoke scent and also cold air in my lungs and coughing a little at it. “Me? You’re asking me?”
“Get out of town. You. Your friends. You might want to split up a little.”
“You’re the second person today to tell me this.”
“It’s a good idea.” He gave me a concerned look, something I’d never witnessed from him before and that scared me to my bones. “Alice and old Mr. Murdock are organized crime. And they’ve made a few friends with some people high up and in hell, too.” He nodded toward the others. “Help me get them out.”
Maybe we were wrong about staying behind. Maybe we were wrong about fighting this. “Shouldn’t we do something? Shouldn’t we stop them?”
“We’re no
t prepared for this.”
“We keep burning our stuff, we’re not going to be.”
“Don’t you get it, hellbeast?” He raised his voice at me. “This isn’t about money anymore. It isn’t about them trying to get away with something.” He approached me again, gripping at my forearms to keep me from stepping back. “Alice was the investor.”
On the ship, we were trying to figure out who the investor was, and I pretended to be the investor because it seemed no one knew. “Alice?”
“She’s behind everything. And she’s a soulless demon who is now just pissed off you’ve been trying to infiltrate. She’s having to get rid of all witnesses. She’s even killed off her own people. That guy on the boat. The loose end.”
I blinked at him, “Sam? Wasn’t he arrested?”
“Yeah, but he’s dead now. Happened a couple of hours ago. While in jail.”
My body went rigged. “How?”
“Friends in hell.” He grunted. “She probably assumes we got involved to take over or something stupid.”
“Shouldn’t we stop her?”
“Not our territory. This is something covert ops should be doing. FBI level.”
I smirked at him. “We’re not FBI level?”
“Below my paygrade,” he said. He released me. “Get out of town. Take them with you. Cut your ties.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I’m not asking you to. Blake is.”
I pressed my lips together. “Are you in contact?”
“Not since before he blew up his house,” he said. “But it’s the last thing he said to me. Get her out of town. I was going to go see you after I took care of this.”
I stilled, looking at the pile of rubble, thinking about the blown-up house in South of Broad.
Thinking about Alice and her phone call, and the dead body she tried to pin on Blake. And now Sam, her own thug that admitted to the murder, was dead.
She’d tried to kill us. Blake was so scared he was in self-destruct mode.
She wasn’t afraid to do things I would never do. To kill someone. The police weren’t catching up with her just yet.
So we couldn’t leave. Because if she wasn’t after us, she’d be after innocent people next perhaps. Academy people. Anyone who had helped us. She’d find them to find us, then kill them.
Raven was right. She needed put down.
And running like this wasn’t a good idea. It separated us. It made us weak. She probably wanted this. Pull us apart, and she’d off us one by one.
It’s what I would do.
WITH BATED BREATH
On the way back to downtown Charleston, I slumped in the back seat, crossed my arms at my torso and glared at the roof of the Tesla. For a few miles, I was silent, contemplating what I wanted to do.
“What were you two talking about?” Corey asked.
Avery angled the rearview mirror to look at me better as he was driving. “Yeah, what’s the plan?”
I hadn’t said much other than we should get going when we’d gotten into the car to head back. I was trying to think. “Is Marc okay?” I asked. I looked toward Corey. “Can you confirm?”
He tilted his head and blinked at me, but then pulled out his phone. “Just a quick call I think.”
It only took a few minutes.
“People say he’s fine,” Corey said and hung up on whoever he was talking to. “He’s not actually in a jail cell. He’s in an office doing some paperwork. It’s just going to take a while. They were backed up with reports and short on staff, especially with the house explosion downtown.”
My heart settled down a little. If she got to Sam, she could get to us. I was trying to formulate the picture in my mind. If I were her, what would I do to make sure the people who tried to screw up my business and life…what would I do to them?
“Every time we’ve failed, it’s because they’ve managed to split us up,” I said to him. I tried my best to show some confidence in this theory. “Axel wanted to pretend to hide. I think we should get ourselves out of town a bit. I don’t think we should split up like they said. We need to stick together.”
“I don’t know,” Corey said. “I want to agree with you, but she could also put us in a space together and get us in one go.”
“I don’t think she can. There might not be that many on her side right now, and that’s why she kept trying to get us apart. I think we need to stop letting her bait us into separating. We can still hide until we can figure out what to do next, but do it together. As many as we can get.”
“The water would be the best idea,” Avery said. “A ship. Something small you can navigate.”
“Not a car?” Corey asked.
“I usually prefer a car myself,” he said. “But take a boat out into the middle of the ocean and sit a bit. A big enough boat would keep you all together. You can pull into any port. You can run a lot on the water, and no one knows where you are. Especially if you leave off GPS and phone signals. Buy new ones in every port if you want some sort of connection.”
Corey smirked at him. “Look at you, planning an escape.”
Avery made a cheek-puffing grin. “I’m learning.”
“You’re not wrong though,” Corey said. “Waterways are the best option if we’re going to do this.”
My lips twitched. It was on the tip of my tongue to say more, but I held back. Avery was here. He had enough to deal with getting back to Ethan
The way back into Charleston, the sun was setting and the roads had cleared up.
Doyle and what he said echoed in my mind.
Organized crime.
I knew they had to be now that he said it. They’d kidnapped Corey for some elaborate plot, a lot more sophisticated than just random thieves.
Out of our league.
I was a pickpocket. A no one. Corey was just trying to be a better person. We had no idea who they all were, just that they were very dangerous.
However, I couldn’t help but think they were still human. And it seemed like if Alice and old Mr. Murdock were still out there, they were the ringleaders, everyone taking orders from them.
And if that was the case, it was cutting the head off the snake, right? The body dies after that. We didn’t need to get everyone in the organization. We get them, that’s all that mattered.
“The police are already looking for them,” I said. “Shouldn’t we just find them and lead the police to them?”
“She may have a friend or two with the police,” Corey said. “At least I think so. Someone let that one guy get killed under their protection. We need someone higher up.”
I leaned forward, putting my chin near his shoulder as I stretched over the back of his seat. He was sitting back, gazing out the window, but turned his head a little when I was close.
“Don’t you know people?” I asked him.
“Personally? No. But I might know a guy who knows a guy.”
It wasn’t long before Avery had us back at the Sargent Jasper. He dropped us off at the door.
“You go right back to Ethan,” Corey said. “Don’t leave him and have security around at all times. Don’t get caught alone.”
“I got you,” he said and touched two fingers to his forehead in an awkward salute.
Before I went inside, Corey stopped me and turned me to him. “Listen,” he said. “I think you’re right.”
My jaw twitched as it tightened. “Shouldn’t we talk about this inside?”
He frowned. “I just think convincing the others might be a bit difficult. And I think we need more people. I’ve been doing the numbers in my head.” His hand twitched, raising up and making motions like writing numbers with his fingertips. “I’d like to work on it though. Can you give me some time to figure it out? Don’t mention it until I’ve got something.”
I’d never really witnessed him doing his math calculations for this sort of thing. I was interested in watching.
I didn’t know if he’d be able to do it soon enough, b
ecause I wasn’t very good at hiding what I was thinking from people. “Tell me how math helps you figure out solutions to things like this?”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “Let’s go in. I’ll get started.”
We had to get past security, but what surprised me was that Corey had to undo a small gun that he’d tucked into a holster at his waist.
I hadn’t even noticed.
I’d been so stressed since we’d been running around after Marc got picked up. This scared me because this was Corey toting around a gun. Anyone else around us could have been carrying and I was just too out of it to notice.
I didn’t say anything about it until we got to the elevator.
“When were you going to tell me about the gun?” I asked.
He shrugged, the material of his blue shirt bunching up at the shoulders. “Raven said I need to if we’re going out.”
“It’s weird,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the side of the elevator. “I thought I was taking this serious before. But just the last few hours, I feel like I was playing before and now…”
He pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. “We underestimated her before. No chance this time.”
“What are you going to do? If you see her, you shoot her?”
His blue eyes lifted, meeting my gaze.
“Seriously?”
“She’s already tried to kill us. It’s what she wants now. We see her, we shoot.”
I frowned. “Can you do it? Kill her?”
His lip quivered. “I don’t know.”
It was something I was hoping we wouldn’t have to find out, but he was right to think we might have to. But Corey wasn’t a killer. “Maybe we let those friends of a friend of yours in on this sooner.”
He didn’t answer, but he seemed to consider what I was thinking.
The elevator door opened on the seventh floor. The hall was empty.
“Do many people live on this floor?” I asked him.
“Just a few now,” he said. “As people moved out of this floor, they haven’t moved anyone else in. Just for now while we’re getting ready to move out. I think our people wanted to give us space…you know, while things were happening these last few months.”
