“No—I took the down payment.”
“So do you just give the money back? They’ll let you do that, right?”
I could see he wanted to tell me the truth, but he stubbornly refused to open is mouth.
“They’ll kill you, too, won’t they?” I didn’t know who ‘they’ were, but I could see the answer in his eyes.
I took a step back from him as he turned loose of my arm. He was giving me a chance to run, but I stepped around him and walked to his front door.
“Leese, what are you doing?”
I ignored him. I pushed the key into the lock and walked inside. He was following me, telling me to get out and leave. I kept my pace steady as I headed for his bedroom. I knew what was in that dresser now. I pulled open the drawer that he’d been in last night. This was real and I couldn’t believe it. Lying there in an open case was a large, dark handgun.
I only knew a little about guns, but I could plainly see that the clip was in the handle and I was certain it was loaded. I lifted it out, careful to keep my fingers away from the trigger, and turned around. I expected that he would be standing right there waiting to snatch it from my hands, but he wasn’t. He was standing in the doorway, arms braced against each side of the door frame, his face pained and pale, and he was perfectly still. He was giving me the best shot possible.
I walked toward him, the gun butt clenched in both my hands but pointed to the floor. When I was no more than five feet from him, he told me to stop.
“You can’t miss from there—and if you get any closer, I will take it away from you.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment that the tears were spilling down my cheeks. I walked right up to him and turned the gun sideways and put it against his chest. “Take it,” I choked. “You’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt, right?”
His eyes were wide with disbelief, but his hand was trained to go for the gun.
The next thing I knew, I was against the bedroom wall. He had me by the throat and the gun was at my temple. I kept my eyes shut. I didn’t want my last memory of him to be the look on his face when he pulled the trigger.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” He snarled, his grip getting tighter on my throat. “Don’t you realize that this is what I do? I don’t get involved—I don’t fall in love—I don’t care if someone lives or dies—I do what I’m paid to do! Why didn’t you just shoot me and end this?”
I swallowed, but it was difficult with his hand so tight on my throat. My eyes opened, they felt like they were about to bulge out of my head. I couldn’t take much more of this. I would simply pass out and never know what happened. Then his grip relaxed and I could get some air.
“Tell me why you didn’t shoot me?” But this time it sounded like a plea.
“If you let me go, someone else will step in. Maybe that person won’t care if Kimmy, or Bev or Matt or Matt Junior is in the way—maybe it’s better this way,” I said, trying to keep my quivering lips from pulling down at the corners. “And, I don’t want someone to kill you because of me.” I’d never seen a more confused look on someone’s face in my life, and then he seemed to snap out of it.
“I have to kill you,” he stated, using the full press of his body to hold me to the wall, “But—I have to have you first, Leese.”
His mouth was moving toward mine, but my face turned away. “You’re going to have to shoot me,” I replied, a certain amount of bravado still clinging to my moral fiber. “The only man that is going to have me will be the one who loves me.” My fingers were formed into claws, and I pressed them to his bandaged side to let him know the fight was getting ready to happen.
“What does it matter? You’re ready to die and you said you wanted to say yes last night, say yes now. Tell me you want me,” he breathed the words against my neck.
“Last night, I was hoping it was love. Not this way—if you’re looking for a rape victim, you’ve found the wrong girl.”
The word rape must have taken the fire completely out of him. He didn’t want to force me into anything, and he was apparently having trouble coming to grips with the fact that I’d give him permission to kill me, but not to violate my body. He knew he couldn’t make me do it by threatening to kill me—I’d already agreed to that—but it seemed he desperately wanted me to need him enough to willingly give him the living part of myself, not just to offer my death.
“Will you tell me something?” I asked as the gun returned to my temple and the void returned to his eyes. “Who paid you? Who wants me dead? And why this way? Why didn’t you just find me that first day and walk up to me and shoot me?”
He released me slowly and lowered the gun. “This business isn’t always about knowing who’s flipping the bill. Matter of fact, it’s rare to know who is really behind the money when it’s a complicated hit.”
“Why was I complicated?”
“You really want to do this, don’t you? You want to discuss how you’re supposed to die?”
I could only nod.
He took a deep breath and turned his back to me. He went to the dresser and put the gun away, “I was given six weeks to get this job done. I guess it won’t hurt to talk to you about it.”
“Six weeks?” I said in disbelief. What kind of mental case would need someone to get so close to me? Did they want me to fall in love and then have that person murder me? I knew if I had spent another five weeks with Evan, I would be so deeply in love—and no matter what he said about his job or the fact that his heart was supposed to be untouchable, I knew he would have fallen.
“Let’s go out by the pool and have a drink,” he said, sounding like a good host—at the Bate’s motel.
We sat on the patio, the waves lapping at the shoreline and the sun sparkling off the pool. It would have been perfect under other circumstances. He brought out a tray with coke, glasses of ice and a bottle of rum. The rum was something I didn’t expect. He set it down, getting ready to uncap it; I was suddenly so scared.
“Please—please no alcohol.”
He shrugged his shoulders, uncapped the bottle and moved to his glass.
“For either one of us,” I pleaded.
He looked up at me, his hand frozen in place. “I’m not eighteen, Leese.”
“I don’t care, please, please don’t.”
“You aren’t afraid when I hold a gun to your head, but you’re terrified if we drink?”
“Drinking makes people do things they never intended to do. If you’re going to put a bullet in me, you’ll have to do it sober.”
“Well, then, maybe you should drink,” his hand shifting the bottle to my glass.
“No, I might try to kill you—and you’d let me.” I looked back into that handsome face. “I’d never forgive myself.”
He put the cap back on and set the bottle down on the pool deck. “You are the strangest woman I’ve ever met.” Then he opened a coke and poured it into our glasses.
“So tell me why so long? Why didn’t they just pay you to get it over with?”
He laughed and leaned back against his chair.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’ve never had to explain my job to my victim—it’s ludicrous.”
“So I’m weird, but you’ve figured that out.”
He took a sip of his coke and began, “My job was to get you to go out with me, for people to see us together. I was supposed to get you to like me enough, that when you vanished, everyone would believe that you ran away with me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It was supposed to cause a reaction somewhere. It would have been in the papers. I’m sure the story about what you were doing in Pensacola in the first place would have been all over the news. But,” he said, setting down the glass and looking at me. “After a week or two, whenever they told me, your body was supposed to turn up. Evan Lewis would have been the guy with the blame, but he no longer exists.”
“You didn’t…” I swallowed, “You didn’t kill the real Evan Lewis, did y
ou?”
“No. He was a high school drop-out from Dawson High School in Georgia. His family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska and he was killed in a car accident a few weeks later.”
“How did you take his identity? I mean, it can’t be something simple to assume.”
“You really are determined to learn all about me, aren’t you?” he mused.
“Weird, remember?”
“My whole family is involved in the criminal ‘underworld’,” he said, making quotation marks in the air. “My mother is a master at forgery, records, and documents. Whatever is out there, she can find it, copy it, alter it; she’s extremely good at what she does, an artist actually. She put the records together for me to register as Evan Lewis, and she made sure that the school still thought they were viable.”
I didn’t understand; evidently he saw that.
“She made sure Dawson wouldn’t refuse a records transfer because they had knowledge that he was dead. Then she made some changes so that no trail would connect me to the real owner of this identity. I’m him; at least until I do something stupid like kill a girl from Pensacola high school.”
“So you’re Evan Lewis while I’m still alive?”
“Yeah, except for my car which I’m assuming you read the registration. I have two, the fake one is in my wallet, but I’d forgotten about the other one until this morning. That was a stupid mistake and I don’t usually make mistakes.”
“Really?” Now it was my turn to laugh a little.
“What?”
“You’ve evidently been shot twice and cut more than once. Don’t they count as mistakes?”
“No, just occupational hazards. The guy who shot my shoulder for example was the body guard for my target. He never left the guy’s side and it was supposed to be a close range shot, so I had to deal with him after I made my target.”
“You talk like a target isn’t something human.” I couldn’t keep the sadness out of my voice—I was his target.
“It’s not, not for me anyway. My dad taught me my trade when I was fourteen. He was waiting to see if I could be completely detached, just like he and my brother. That’s why we get the big money—we don’t get involved, we just get the job done.”
“But I was different,” I whispered.
“Yeah. You’re my first civilian.”
“Civilian? You mean you do this in other countries?”
“No,” he gave a bitter laugh and tried to explain, “In my business we call a civilian someone that isn’t part of, or involved in, a crime or a crime family. You’re an innocent,” he sighed catching my sight. “Like someone being bumped for insurance money. My family doesn’t usually do that. Even we consider that dirty money, but they needed someone that was professional and could pass for your age.”
“How much am I worth to you?”
“You were worth two-hundred and fifty thousand until this morning.”
“Were? What changed?”
He reached into the pocket of his jeans and produced my wallet; he’d had it on him the whole time.
“I only had your fake last name. I think that was one reason I couldn’t take my chances and simply kill you, I didn’t know who you really were—Miss. Winslett. You weren’t kidding about being rich.” He placed my wallet on the table and I picked it up as he continued. “I called my contact this morning and told them the price was going up to a million.”
I held my wallet and stared at it. “Does more money make it easier for you?”
He got up, still holding his coke and walked to the edge of the pool. “Not this time,” he faintly replied.
An idea was taking shape inside me. I had no clue if he’d even consider it, but I had to try. I had to know who was behind the plan to get me killed.
“We still have five weeks,” I said, following him to where his back was turned to me. “I want to hire you.”
He turned around, eyes wide open. “You want me to kill someone?”
“No, and if I had my way, you’d never kill another soul, but I want you to help me figure out who is behind the money. I’ve got to know who is doing this and why.”
“I’m no detective, Leese,” he started to rebut.
“Yeah and you’re no idiot either. You have connections. You know how this all works. I know you can do this for me.”
“What are you offering in trade?”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me and if he wasn’t a killer with a gun in the other room, I’d have slapped his face. I opened my wallet and pulled out my Visa. “Did you check my balance?”
“Ninety-eight-thousand-four-hundred-something.”
“That sounds about right.” I was trying not to act surprised that he had actually checked what was on the card. “If I throw in the title to my Porsche, that’s almost a quarter million—the original going price for my life—but I want my five weeks.”
“And at the end of the five weeks?” he questioned.
“Do what you have to,” I stated firmly. “I just want whoever is doing this to my family stopped.”
That tiny grin that liked to play with the edges of his mouth was starting to form, “We’ll have to make it look like everything is going as planned. They could be watching me and I don’t want this botched.”
“You mean I have to look like I’m falling for you?”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, kissing my forehead. “You’ve got to be my girl—just like you’re falling.”
“On one condition.” Although I knew I wasn’t in a very good position to make demands. But, I wrapped my arm around his waist to see if this would work. “You don’t go crazy on me like last night or in the bedroom. You’ll be a perfect gentleman.”
“You’re going to make this job tough on me aren’t you?”
“I hope so,” I said, resting my face against his chest. “Hard enough to change your mind.”
“Don’t plan for it,” he chided me.
I tipped my face up and, to his surprise, kissed his cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” he questioned with clear curiosity.
“Yes. Be at my house by nine-fifteen. We have church.”
“I don’t think…”
“My boyfriend would go with me,” I reminded him. “And besides, I don’t think you’ll burst into flames or anything like that.”
“I don’t know,” he quipped, “Tomorrow is supposed to be stormy and lightening is a distinct possibility. But I’ll be at your house at six tonight.”
“For what?”
“Dinner. My girlfriend would go out with me on Saturday night—some place nice.”
I smiled. “Fine, I’ll see you tonight. Just remember your promise.”
He sighed and turned me loose.
I needed to go home. I had a lot of work to do before my ‘date’ tonight.
I got home around one o’clock. I had to get on the computer and print out some things I wanted him to go over. I had determined that he was going to remain Evan in my book. Besides, he wouldn’t go back to being himself until I was dead, and then it wouldn’t matter to me anyway. There were newspaper articles about my grandfather’s death, names and information about our family and some friends. And of course, there was the matter of family history on both sides.
It was almost three p.m. when I finished. Just in time. Kimmy and I called home, every Saturday at three. It was a chance to talk with our parents, catch up on what was going on in Palm Beach and listen to Mom’s latest suspicions about what was happening. I really owed her an apology, but I didn’t want to give her more to worry about. If I was lucky, Evan would discover what was going on, and I’d expose it to the police before anyone else in my family was hurt.
I tried the house phone, but there was no answer. That wasn’t unusual. They could have been out at the pool or out for lunch. Maybe Mom even felt good enough to go out shopping. I tried her cell, but it went to voicemail after a few rings. Next was Dad’s. It rang once and he p
icked up.
“Hey Dad,” I said, relieved to have someone answer. “Where’s Mom? I tried her cell phone.”
“She’s right here, Leese, but she isn’t feeling so good right now; she’s lying down.”
“Oh, I don’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping…”
“No, she’s not asleep, yet, but she’s kind of groggy. She didn’t get too much sleep last night. You know how that is. She heard a hundred sounds in the night and stayed up until almost dawn, so she took a sleeping pill.”
I didn’t like the idea of Mom taking pills. She was one of those people who wouldn’t take an aspirin for a headache, much less a sleeping pill. I heard her in the background asking if it was me on the phone. She sounded far away and woozy. And then I could hear the sound of the phone being passed to her.
“Hey, Honey,” she slurred. “How are my girls?”
“We’re okay, Mom. What happened? You didn’t get any sleep last night?”
“Leese, becareful…” she ran it together. “…make sure your doors and windows are locked.”
That sent a chill down my spine as I remember the unlocked window in my room. Could someone be doing the same thing to Mom, going around and unlocking things just to freak her out? “I do, Mom. I check every night before I go to bed. Kimmy wants to say hi, hold on?”
Kimmy was jumping up and down, anxious to have her turn. She got a funny look on her face though when she finally got on the phone. She wanted to know if Mom was okay because her voice was different. Eventually Dad got on the line and she talked with him for about ten minutes telling him all about her week at school. And then I heard her say something I didn’t expect,
“…and Leese’s got a boyfriend!”
“Kimmy!” I scolded, “I was supposed to get to tell that if I wanted to.”
She stuck her tongue out at me and continued her conversation. She was telling Dad all about Evan; he was big and strong and handsome and he has a cool car, but that I wouldn’t let her ride in it (the tongue stuck out at me again). She finally said her goodbyes and returned the phone to me.
Well, that should be a fun act to follow. I took a deep breath and put it to my ear. “Hey,”
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