Trouble Comes Knocking (Entangled Embrace)

by Duncanson, Mary

  “Total Bond Girl material,” I told her. “Bombshell all the way.”

  “Good, that’s what I was going for.” She sat at the edge of her bed and pulled on a pair of patent leather black ballerina flats.

  “No heels?” I asked.

  “In the movies, the girl is always caught running in heels. One of them breaks, she stumbles, and is caught.”

  “You won’t have to run,” I said, though the closer it drew to go time, the more I questioned our plan.

  “Still,” she said, looking at me with an intensity I rarely saw from Ana. “Best to be prepared.”

  “Do you want out?” John expressed his doubts earlier, and I certainly had mine. Ana would be crazy not to want to turn away at this point.

  “Hell no, I don’t want out!”

  Or not.

  She stood in front of me, Rambo in lipstick, ready for war. “Look, my life is only getting more and more complicated by the day. Between balancing modeling and my relationship with Bobby and my friendship with you…do you know I hardly see Bobby anymore?”

  I did know, but I didn’t tell her as much.

  “Who knows where I’ll be tomorrow, or next month even.”

  Milan, I thought miserably.

  “These adventures with you, I have to take them now or I might not have a chance. This is scary and dangerous, and I can’t remember the last time I felt this alive.”

  “You ready, then?”

  She took a breath and placed hands on her hips in a sexy pose. “I’m hot, right? I mean, we shouldn’t keep this poor chum waiting.”

  “No we should not.”

  I’d dressed up, too, but not as much. Black cowl-neck sweater, my only pair of designer blue jeans, Ugg boots—really, if I’d worn anything other than comfortable shoes Dee would have known something was up. We had to make Aunt Dee believe we were going out. So even though I was basically running surveillance in my car, I still dressed to party. Hell, I even debated on a scarf but decided that would fool no one. I only owned one and had never worn the sucker before in my life.

  Downstairs, Aunt Dolores watched television in front of a blazing fire with a bowl of popcorn propped against her lap. “You girls headed out?” she asked without glancing in our direction. “Make sure to take your coats. It’s supposed to get cold tonight.”

  “Cold like sixty?” I asked, always amazed at how fast people ran for cover at the slightest drop in temperature. Being generally hot-blooded myself, I always welcomed fall with open arms.

  Now she looked. “No, we’re supposed to hit the low thirties tonight. They’re issuin’ an overnight freeze warnin’. Tomorrow isn’t supposed to get above forty, and it’ll be cold Sunday, too.”

  We grabbed our coats from the stand by the door for good measure. “Love you,” she shouted from the couch.

  I wanted to hug her again, but I didn’t want to draw suspicion. “We’ll be back later,” I assured her, hoping it was true.

  The butterflies in my stomach spun and dove as if they belonged in Cirque de Soleil by the time we arrived at the bar. Ana and Tom were supposed to meet there before going off to the game. “You ready?” I asked as she straightened herself one last time.

  “As I’ll ever be.” She dialed my number, and I picked up before she dropped her phone into her pocket. “I’m going to go meet Tom. If you can’t hear me okay, you’ll have to let me know before we leave the bar. You have their number, call and ask for me.”

  I hugged her neck, squeezing extra hard. “You are an amazing friend, you know that?”

  She squeezed back. “I know.”

  Laughing, I swatted her ass as she left the car. Then I drove to where I’d planned to spend my night, parked about a block from The Slotted Spoon. Ana’s sound check worked perfectly. I dialed John, remembering yesterday’s lesson he gave me on how to conference. “Can you hear us both okay?”

  He paused for a second. I could hear Ana ordering a drink in the background. “Yeah,” he said, finally.

  “Is everything else set up?” I asked, nervous energy making me shift back and forth in my seat.

  “I have several search screens up, I’m energy-drink equipped, and I have my Bluetooth connected in case I have to pee.”

  “Eww.” Although, now that he said it, I hadn’t thought about what I would do if the need arose. I looked around and saw a gas station not too far from where I parked. “Gross, but I’m glad you brought it up.”

  He laughed. Through the phone, I heard Ana greet her date. I knew she’d turned down the volume on her phone so they couldn’t hear us, but I heard them much more clearly than I’d expected.

  “You look beautiful,” Tom said in a voice part desperation part pure disbelief. He knew he’d won the lottery yet still thought he’d deserved it somehow. “Here, let me pay for your drink, and we’ll get out of here.”

  “You look pretty hot yourself,” she responded in her most seductive voice. “I’m digging the shiny purple shirt and black pants. Totally retro.”

  “This guy is crazy, John,” I said as I heard them leave. “Not like psycho gonna cut her face off and wear it to a party kind of crazy, more very delusional about who he is crazy.”

  John laughed and then chugged what I assumed was an energy drink. “Most guys are. I mean, you’re way out of my league, but somehow you haven’t figured it out yet.”

  I was glad he couldn’t see me blush. It was the kind of compliment girls live for but rarely actually get. And for some reason it made me think about Eli. I was still angry at him for what he said and the way things went down between us. Still, just like John, he made me believe I could use my ability for good. He made me feel special because of that, not like the freak I used to think I was.

  Even if he hadn’t meant to. Even if he was, in the end, using me.

  “So, babe, don’t say anything when we get there,” Tom told Ana. “Go in with me, they won’t question it, but you can’t be chatting everyone up or anything. Pretty little thing you are, you’ll already be such a distraction I’ll have no problem winning.”

  “Sure, baby,” she responded. “It’ll be cool sitting in. Like I told you, I love watching poker, but I’ve never been to an underground game before. Seems so mysterious and hot.”

  His car engine died, and I knew they would be going into The Slotted Spoon any minute. “Well, these guys are serious. The buy-in is five thousand dollars, and from some of the things they’ve said, they don’t take owing money lightly. I don’t know for sure, but I think at least one guy died because of his debt. He owed a lot though.”

  I shivered, wondering if that was Mr. Winters.

  “I don’t like this,” John said into his Bluetooth. “I’m thinking we need to call the whole thing off.”

  “It’s too late,” I told him, feeling the same way but knowing we couldn’t do a thing to stop it. “They’re already there. She has her phone volume turned off. Even if I told her to get out, she wouldn’t hear me.”

  “Still, this sounds way too dangerous. Someone killed? I mean, we knew about Mr. Winters, but this is playing with fire. I don’t like it,” he said again.

  I agreed. “You have the recording equipment set up, right?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Been recording since you first called.”

  “Good. Let’s just not miss any of this.”

  The next thing we heard was Tom and Ana going into the game. None of the voices sounded particularly familiar, though none sounded happy Ana was there, either.

  “She’s not going to say anything,” Tom defended, obviously embarrassed about being called out in front of his female companion. “She’s only here to watch. Right, babe?”

  “Yeah, poopikins,” she said in her most seductive voice. I could hear her trying to work the room. “I think this is so exciting. I love watching.” I’d have laughed at the unmistakable sexual innuendo in her voice had I not been scared for her life.

  The men relaxed, though, and started the game
.

  “They aren’t saying anything,” John said about a half hour later. “What do you think, most boring stakeout in the history of stakeouts?”

  “Ugh!” As Tom won another hand, it sounded like this night wouldn’t be ending any time soon. I reached for the box of cheese crackers I’d brought. “I didn’t think to bring a book. At least I have games on my phone. Think I might find any poker games on here? We could play each other while they play inside.”

  John laughed. “I’d come join you, but I’d be abandoning my post, and I think that would be considered bad stakeout etiquette.”

  “Bad indeed.”

  We listened for a little while longer, but things continued down the same boring road. Ana didn’t talk, and the guys playing the game never said anything interesting. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d promised to stay there with her, I’d go home.

  “Do you think there is any way we could artfully spring her from the game?” I asked John after another hour passed.

  He groaned. “Sorry, kid. I think we’re stuck.”

  I wondered how Natalie was fairing tonight. We were doing all this for her, and I hadn’t even told her. It wasn’t as if I needed the gratitude, I only wished she knew how much we cared, and that we weren’t going to let her go down without a fight.

  Closing my eyes, I let them rest for a few minutes as I continued to listen to the game. John and I weren’t talking much anymore, and sometimes I could even hear what sounded like light snores on his end. After a few minutes I heard a car pull up behind mine. I opened my eyes to see what was going on, then screamed as someone broke my back window.

  “What the hell is going on?” John asked, though I couldn’t concentrate on him anymore.

  A gun pressed hard against my skull, and instinctively I raised my hands. “What do you want?”

  “Open your door.”

  “Okay, okay.” I slipped the phone into my pocket and unlocked the door.

  He didn’t wait for me to open it and instead yanked it open himself. “Get out.”

  I glanced up, catching only a glimpse of him in a dark hoodie and blue jeans, the ace of hearts tattoo on his neck, before he smashed the gun across the side of my head. Brightness and fireworks of pain echoed through my brain. I fell to my knees as I stumbled from the car, crying out, “Please, why are you doing this, Ben?”

  He kicked my side, and I rolled into a ball, trying to protect myself as the sharp pain in my pelvis took my breath away. I looked up, completely disoriented.

  “Get up,” he said, motioning with his gun. “Get into my car.”

  At the gas station across the street people were pumping gas, but I couldn’t even find a voice to scream. Not that they could have heard me. Five lanes of busy traffic separated us, and I’d intentionally parked in the shadows to try to stay hidden during my stakeout.

  With the gun still on me, I held my hands in front of my face as I followed his orders.

  I fell into the driver’s seat, then maneuvered over the middle console, bumping my head on the roof before settling into the passenger seat. He followed me in, keeping the gun trained on me. Shifting the green Cougar into reverse, he drove north toward Fort Worth.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Still reeling in shock and pain, I begged my brain to find some escape, or at least a way to stall him until John showed up with the cavalry. I finally understood why the victims in movies always tried to get the bad guy to talk. The way I saw it, the more Ben said to me, the longer I had to formulate a way out of this.

  What I couldn’t understand was how I hadn’t known it was him. “So all of this is because you liked Natalie and she didn’t like you back?” I asked as he drove us into a part of the city I’d never seen.

  “That was the icing on the cake,” he said, gun never wavering from its target: me. “I couldn’t have asked for a better setup. When Simon went to my father saying he wanted out of the poker games, it’s like he handed me my opportunity on a platter.” I saw him clearer now: dark circles under his eyes, a long scar from his ear down his neck and disappearing into the hoodie.

  “Wait, your dad is Ulysses Smith?”

  “Yes. How else would I have gotten the job at HGR?” He pulled off the freeway and into an industrial part of town. It was nearly pitch-black, nothing but a handful of stars to light the way. There wasn’t even a moon, which made it all the eerier.

  “So he wanted out, and that’s why the money went missing?”

  “He had to buy his way out of the games. That was the only way my dad could make sure he wouldn’t do anything crazy, like go to the cops. Dad knew Simon didn’t have that kind of money, and he’d have to steal it to get out.” He smiled in what looked to be smug satisfaction.

  “Why did he want out?”

  “Said he fell in love. With that secretary chick. Was going to leave his wife and go live happily ever after.” Ben talked in a somewhat clipped tone. He drove slowly like he didn’t have a great idea of where he was going. His eyes darted from side to side, drifting slightly in each direction. Maybe I could jump out.

  Then he saw something and the car straightened, everything becoming more focused, from his posture to the set of his jaw. I looked around, trying to discover what landmark he might have seen. “There sure are a lot of buildings out here.”

  He didn’t say a word.

  I might die, I thought, surprised at how calm, how focused, I felt. I shifted once again toward the door. “So Winters fell in love. That’s good.” I reached for the handle, ready to jump, but he sped up.

  “Love’s not real. No one actually loves anyone else. John doesn’t love you. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t.”

  John loved me? He couldn’t yet; it had been only a few weeks.

  “How did you know I was at Eli’s house that night?”

  “Hacked John’s phone. He left that thing laying around all the time, it wasn’t hard to install a program that let me see all of his text messages. You two text a lot. Stupid shit, too. That’s why I know it isn’t love. You don’t talk about anything real. Nobody talks about real shit anymore.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  He turned a corner and slowed a little, not answering my question. I tried a different tactic. “So why did you kill him? I mean, I assume you were the one who killed him.”

  “Because of you,” he answered, using the gun as an exclamation point. “He still owed another fifty thousand when you went to him and ruined everything. He was going to back out, said he couldn’t steal anything else from the company. Couldn’t risk being caught. Said he’d pay it back some other way.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Dad didn’t believe him, and neither did I. Eventually the theft would have come back to him, and then he’d have flipped on all of us, sending the cops our way. The only thing we could do was get rid of him.”

  “But why frame Natalie?” I asked, at this point caring less about the mystery of the whole thing and more about hugging Aunt Dolores one last time. There had to be a way out of this. I could run, but I certainly couldn’t dodge bullets, and I didn’t know how good his aim was. The lighting wasn’t great, but I didn’t want to depend on that as my only hope for getting out alive.

  He pulled into a warehouse area and drove slowly. My heart galloped as time slipped away. If I kept him talking, Natalie could be saved. At this point I didn’t feel much hope for me.

  “That was the best part,” he said, eyes wide and speech growing more manic as he went. “I’ve owed that cock tease for years for what she did to me. I already took care of Diana, and she didn’t even do as much. This was far sweeter.”

  Bile rose in my throat. I glanced around. The entire place was abandoned. Not a car in sight. Nothing remarkable to give John a clue as to our location. I didn’t even know how to find help if I somehow made it out of this. “What do you mean took care of Diana?”

  “Diana knew I liked Natalie but told her not to go for me. Me. Then she
set Natalie up with Clive.”

  “That was a couple of years ago. Why did you wait so long to do something about it?”

  He pulled up to a building and stopped the car. “Diana called me a loser. Said no woman would want me and I’d have better luck with my hand than ever finding a girl. Told me I reminded her of one of those quiet guys who carries a rifle up into a clock tower.”

  Kinda, yeah. “But you’re not that guy, and you don’t have to be that guy. We don’t even have a clock tower that I know of.”

  He smiled, his eyes dead, and motioned me out of the car. He pushed me ahead of him into the warehouse and down a set of stairs. The calm from earlier left as my breathing became more erratic. I can’t die here, I kept chanting in my head. I looked around as much as I dared, trying to take note of a way to escape. My breath blew out white and wispy in the cold night air. He pulled out a flashlight to light the way, but it barely showed ten feet in front of us, much less anything identifiable. I touched the phone in my pocket, wishing I could hear John’s voice. I stumbled, finding it hard to keep my balance while my knees threatened to buckle. The place became colder and damper the farther in we went. Rats scurried around in the dark, and my imagination went into overdrive as the smell of something rotten hung in the air. This place was creepy times twenty, and I needed to figure out a way to let John know where I was.

  We walked to the far corner of the room, and the foul smell grew stronger. I gagged, then covered my mouth and nose. “Where is this place?” I asked. If I could at least get that out of him, I knew John would find me.

  “It’s an old family warehouse,” he answered. “No one uses it anymore. Well, nearly no one.”

  My thoughts raced. “Look, you don’t have to do anything,” I said, definitely feeling a distinct need to wet myself. “Why don’t you just disappear? No one needs to know you killed Mr. Winters.”

  “No one will know. Don’t you get it? You’ll die here. Your little friend, Ana, she’ll be next, then John. No one knows where you are. I can plant evidence on their bodies and make your death come back on them. The perfect revenge. When Simon told us he wanted out, all this was going to be pinned on Diana. He was supposed to steal the money from the company, but the missing data would show up under her log-in. That was my idea. Skinny little bitch. Then she completely ignored me in the elevator one day. Acted like I didn’t even exist. I took care of her that night. Simon balked a couple of weeks later, wanted nothing to do with stealing anymore. Like he thought I wasn’t smart enough to hide the trail. Then I had better plans for them both. No one messes with me or my family without going down. My pops taught me that. Someone messes with you, they get cut.”