by Twist,Tommy
Noah was beginning to calm down a little bit. It had been a few hours since he’d dropped her off at his house, the safest place he could think of on short notice. He might be back by dark, and with some good news to offer while he was at it.
That would be the best way to handle things. Get her started solving her problems, out of his life as soon as he could. It wouldn’t be ideal for his paycheck, but it would be preferable to handling a live situation like an attractive young girl who was gifted and incompatible.
Noah set the beers down, and then the casing in the middle of the table. Dave picked it up, making a face. He put it back down and took a drink.
“You called me out of work for this?”
“I need to know everything I can. I don’t much about guns, really. I figured if anyone would know something, it’d be you, David.”
Dave’s lips tightened at the entire thing.
“Don’t call me that; you know I hate it when you call me that.”
Noah didn’t apologize. He wasn’t sure why he’d decided to turn the screw, but it was done, and it certainly was no accident. He sat there, letting Dave think things over, while he nursed his drink. He only had the one, after all, and buying another while a client waited would be anything but proper.
“Noah, this is useless,” Dave finally said at last. “This is a three-oh-eight casing, it looks like, but that’s a pretty typical hunting cartridge. You said you this was related to a client?”
“I didn’t say anything like that, Dave, and you know it.”
There was the grin, the almost perverse smile that Dave had when he got caught digging for information. Only, Noah knew, he didn’t need to dig far. He’d have seen the look on Noah’s face and it would have told him that he wasn’t half wrong. From there it wasn’t much of guesswork. Dave’s face got serious, though. Ruminative, almost.
“You know what I’m about to tell you, Noah.”
“And what’s that?”
“Don’t get involved with her; it’s only going to get ugly.”
“I’m only working in a civilian capacity, Dave.”
“Oh, of course.” His voice dripped with sarcasm and self-righteousness. “What was I thinking, Noah? You’ve never let a girl get out of control.”
Noah drank what was left of his beer and stood up.
“Thanks for the advice, Dave. I’ll let you get back to work now.”
Dave’s look soured further, and he looked at his drink.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Jane looked composed and cool, though Noah knew it was only a facade. He knocked before he came in, the way he’d said he would. That was the signal not to unload the pistol he’d given her on the first face she saw through the door. It sat beside her on the table, apparently untouched.
Noah knew enough about the sort of people who don’t use guns regularly to know that she probably had nearly forgotten about it until he knocked. Yet at the same time, he suspected, it was ever-present in the periphery of her mind.
He sat down in the only other chair in the place, in the middle of the room. He studiously avoided the idea of sitting on the couch beside her, though it would have been the more comfortable, more natural place to sit. He smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile at her and pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket.
“So, Ms. Everett, I’ve been doing some poking around, and… it’s not ideal. The man who shot at you owns a hunting rifle, appears to smoke.”
Noah laid the cigarette butt down on the coffee table, assuming the young woman wouldn’t recognize it. However, he was surprised to see her caught by a thought. He waited for her to tell him what she was thinking. She was too afraid, he thought, to leave out something that might save her life. Even if it were a little bit silly. All she needed was time, and perhaps a push.
“Well, I do know,” Jane stopped. She seemed to be pondering her choice of words, but then she didn’t go on.
“What is it, miss Everett?”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Noah was nonplussed at her reaction. “Just call me Jane. I’m tired of people calling me ‘Miss Everett.’ At least you could do that.”
It was not typical for Noah to call any of his clients by their given name, particularly the ones he was acting in a protection role with. Normally people of that class were too keen on formalities, hardly even prone to using contractions in their speech.
“Yes, of course.”
“I need to get out of this place. I can’t think in here.”
Noah thought for a moment. It would probably, he reasoned, be safe enough. Nobody would have known where he was. He hadn’t been followed, and he kept himself off lists when he could. He had gotten pretty good at it over the years. Finally he nodded.
His coat hung on the hook by the door, until he took it back. He opened the door first, he walked ahead, keeping an eye out. He saw the man standing there, but he looked harmless enough. There was no reason to think that there was any risk here, anyways.
It wasn’t until the little man moved, as Noah passed, that he realized that somehow he had miscalculated. Noah stepped to intercede and shot his arm out, catching the fellow by the neck. Noah saw now, the little man had a knife in his hand. It would be sharp, he knew, and most of all cheap. He held the headlock on tight and looked to Jane.
“Do you know this man?”
“No!” She was terrified, he saw, and then the knife came down on his thigh.
Clearly the attacker thought he could get away, perhaps even finish the job, if he got Noah to let loose. But his instincts didn’t slacken. He tightened harder, until he heard the little man choking and the knife’s jerking slowed.
He roared out the question in his anger:
“Who do you work for?”
The little man made no motion to answer, just pulled the knife free. Noah tightened again, as hard as his arms would allow. Then the hoodlum stopped moving, his face an ugly color. Noah let him down lightly. He would be awake, he suspected, in a few minutes. And he knew that they had to be away by then.
Jane’s face was a mixture of emotions, the same mixture she had worn earlier that day. The sun was down, now, and they were sitting outside of Noah’s parent’s cottage. Nobody would come here for weeks at a time, he knew. Even if whoever was hunting his client had known about him, had found his apartment, they wouldn’t think to check here. He, himself, had almost been uncertain that they still owned the place.
But the key was still hidden in the same place, and the same pictures hung on the walls, so it stood to reason. So he told Jane they would stay here for the night. She said she needed a shower, to relax. Noah could understand, needed a shower himself.
When she’d called him in to the room, asking for a towel, he had forgotten himself for a moment, noticed her through the glass. It wasn’t a perfect view, but he could see how large her breasts were, how shapely her bottom. He’d only barely managed to maintain his professional distance, then. He set down a towel and a robe he’d pulled from the pantry, and then he turned to go.
“You know, we could save some water showering together.”
Noah could feel a stirring in his loins. The desire to agree rose along with a lump in his throat.
“Jane, you know I can’t.”
“Come on, Mr. Walker.” Noah wasn’t sure what she meant by saying his name that way. He was almost offended, though he couldn’t have said why.
“You know why I can’t. It’s not that—” he stopped for a moment, but then he let himself finish. “It’s not that I’m not interested.”
“Aw, sourpuss. I won’t peek.”
Noah felt the last bits of his resistance slipping away. Perhaps she really wouldn’t peek. It would be saving water, and there was no reason not to be close to her, as long as he didn’t go all the way. He could almost feel the electric haze of mutual arousal, but he attributed it to the heat from the water.
Finally he sighed, unbuttoning his shirt. His clothes were left in a pile on the f
loor, and he knocked on the glass of the shower cover.
“You’d better turn around, I’m coming in.”
And then he slid the glass aside and into the shower he went. The water was aimed at Jane, so he only got the lukewarm spray off her body. Compared to the heat in the room, it seemed ice cold. He turned around, and the two of them stood back-to-back.
“Do you need to get under the water?” Jane’s voice was soft behind him.
“Yeah, do you mind?”
Noah started to edge around the side of the tub, skirting by Jane. He felt her breasts press into his back, and he could feel himself hardening. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to do something, anything to relieve the arousal he was feeling. He knew Jane had to be feeling something, too.
He looked over his shoulder to see Jane facing away. Noah let the water spray into his hair, running down his back. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo, lathering it through his hair. His eyes closed for a moment, and that was when Jane turned. Noah nearly lost his balance when he felt her mouth on him. He didn’t fight her, just let one hand drop down, resting on her head.
“You can’t imagine,” he mused, “how good that feels.”
He let her bob her head on his cock, enjoying the sensation. It seemed to get sharper, more defined and more pleasurable by the moment.
“Don’t stop.”
He could feel his fingers interlacing with her hair, pressing her deeper and deeper. He could feel himself approaching the edge, the release that might let him finally clear his head—then his phone rang. Fuck, he thought. Just another moment.
And then, all at once, the spell was broken. He realized what he’d been ready to do, and he knew Jane had known too. It was playing with fire, and he wasn’t ready to take that risk. He pushed the shower door open and stepped out. Dimly, he could hear Jane behind him, her tone a mix of frustration and confusion, but he wasn’t listening to what she was saying. He needed to get out of that room.
Noah didn’t hear her come in, but when she spoke he didn’t turn to look. It was too difficult to make the situation work as it was, he reasoned. With the way things were going already, he knew that he would only be making himself miserable.
“There’s something I should tell you,” she said.
It was a sentence that he’d always been afraid of, had always made him uncomfortable. Too often people said ‘there’s something you should know’ or ‘there’s something I should tell you’ when they had news he didn’t want to hear.
But he tried to steel himself against that reaction, since he knew she couldn’t be telling him he was adopted and she couldn’t be telling him she was pregnant. So he ignored the pit that dropped open in the bottom of his stomach, hardened his resolve, and only then did he answer.
“Yeah?” He made a motion as if to turn, but he didn’t quite look at her. “What’s that, miss Everett?”
He imagined the look on her face. In his imagination she was angry, her nostrils flaring just so at the targeted, if subtle, barb. Instead, she sat down on the soft chair just in front of him, thoughtful. Almost as if she hadn’t heard it.
Somehow that was unacceptable to Noah, but he couldn’t figure out a way to do anything about it without seeming petulant. So he let her be, waiting for her to reveal whatever she had decided he had to know.
“You know, you are—never mind.” She sighed, and began again. “I was thinking about what you were saying. Hunting rifle, and so on. I was trying to think if that could be some sort of hint, you know?”
Noah nodded, still not daring to look directly at Jane.
“It’s not much to go on, really. Hundreds of thousands of men hunt. Probably ten thousand within twenty miles of you at any given time. It’s not proof of anything.”
“Well, I know that the reason you’re not getting the police involved is that it’s not a coincidence. It’s not some madman who picked my name out of a phone book. So it doesn’t matter how many men in twenty miles of me hunt. It only matters how many I know. Isn’t that right?”
Noah set down the shirt he’d been fussing with. She certainly did have a point. It wouldn’t stand up in any sort of civilian court, but if it gave a clue where to start dealing with the situation it was hardly smart to ignore what she had to offer.
“Let’s say you’re right—”
“I’m right.”
“Saying you are. What does that mean to you?”
“Not much. I’ve never been big on hunting.”
“Thanks, you’ve been a great help.”
Noah started to walk restlessly. There had to be a point to all this discussion, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. She was trying to get to some sort of point, he suspected, but she’d better get to it soon.
“No! I just. I know one guy. It’s stupid though.”
“Well, stupid is better than nothing, Jane. So lay it on me.”
“My… brother hunts sometimes. I’m told he’s not bad at it. He smokes, too. I don’t really know the brand, could be these.”
“Your brother.”
Noah couldn’t help but feel a little bit doubtful. Why would someone so aggressively go after their own sister?
“We’re not close, and… I come from money, you know? Well, he’s not in much position to see anything between my sister and I both being older.” Jane spoke haltingly; clearly, she found what she was saying as disturbing as Noah did.
“So it’d be easier if there were fewer of you, is that what you’re suggesting?”
“I don’t want to think it, but he’s the only person who comes to mind.”
“Alright, then. What’s his name?”
“Manus.”
“Your parents really didn’t like him, did they?”
Jane blinked angrily at that. Noah pulled his phone out and punched the numbers again.
“Hey, Maggie. Can you get some information for me? Of course, of course. The usual rate. Where could I find a… Manus Everett?”
Noah wrote down the address and repeated it back into the phone.
“Yeah, thanks, Maggie. You’re a lifesaver.”
He could see without needing to ask that Jane knew where it was, had probably been there before. Perhaps she’d known her brother lived there and the call had been wasted. More likely, though, she thought, or even knew, that he’d moved on from the place. She didn’t make him wait long to find out which.
“Are you sure that’s current, Noah?”
“No. Did you think people were watched twenty-four-seven to make sure their information is accurate?” He regretted it as soon as he said it. It was rude, he knew, but his mind was buzzing, between the stress of the past few days and the last lingering traches of electricity from their dalliance in the bath.
“Well I just…” She trailed off.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, I suppose you shouldn’t have.” Noah could see in Jane’s eyes that she was still a bit offended, but she had a handle on it. “Manus isn’t living in that complex any more, not the last time I went there. I asked about a forwarding address, and they gave me an address downtown.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“You called before I had time! It’s not my fault!”
Noah looked at her agape. She was right, of course. He’d just assumed. But why hadn’t it even occurred to him to ask her where her own brother lived? He stood, walked over to a different chair, and dropped unceremoniously into it.
“So did you go there?”
“Of course I did!”
“And?”
“I didn’t see him, but I found the room. He was out, I guess. The owner said he was living there, but out.” Jane made a face. “Though, he didn’t use those words exactly.”
“Well, I mean…I can go, but your brother’s seen me. He came to my house, Jane, and he’s clearly ready to commit murder. I think he’d just kill me and come looking for you.”
Jane’s face was drawn in thought. Wh
en she sat back, Noah could see the curve of her breasts through the robe. He turned away, trying with all his might to forget they were there at all.
“And if I come along, what’s to stop him from killing me then and there, I presume. And we can’t have the police involved on such flimsy evidence.”
“You’re seeing the long and short of it. There’s nobody who would go in on such little evidence, and we can’t get more without letting him get another shot at you.”
“So we’re the only people who can really do anything about it, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, then, Mister Walker.” Jane laid back. She knew, he decided. The way she was laying, the way the cloth fell, the way she didn’t try to cover herself. She was doing it on purpose. “It’s time for bed.”
“I’ll be down the hall.”
Jane stuck her chin out a little bit, and Noah had to suppress a grin. If he could frustrate her half as much as she was frustrating him, that would be enough.
“So, let me get this straight.” Noah’s posture didn’t show the stress he was feeling. He formed a shell in his mind, keeping everything out except for the next task at hand. “We know nothing about the situation, except that we’re hoping we don’t get killed. Is that…”
“Well I wouldn’t have put it that way if I had a choice in the matter, but you’ve essentially got the idea.”
Noah nodded. He could see the high-rise already, rising out of the mist and dark of the early morning. Two more miles and they’d be there. Noah sighed, reached across the car.
“Open the glove box,” he waited. “Now give me the gun. You’ve got your talents, but all I’ve got is my good looks and personality.”
“I can see why you need the gun.”
A wry smile crossed Noah’s face. No clever response came to mind, but he opened his mouth just in case. When Jane put the gun in his hand he felt the weight of it, even as he focused on the driving, turning into the lot and parking.
He checked the magazine, though he knew it would be full simply from the heft. The gun went into his coat pocket.
