by Tracy Ellen
“Okay, here we go.” Luke lifted his eyes to the ceiling and his deep voice was impatient. “Do we have to do this, Anabel?”
“In case you forgot, Mr. Hotshit Player, Svettie paid to have me kidnapped and killed because of you!” I shook my head in disbelieving wonder and spoke directly to the women again. I even repeated the same blasphemous curse because Emma had closed her eyes in pain at my words a second ago. “Jesus fucking Christ, and then just because Luke finds out I had an abortion, he gets all righteous and has some sort of moral fucking meltdown.” Ignoring the women’s gasps of outraged distress at that bombshell, I scoffed in disdain, “Like he even believes in all that God crap. His father is always spouting about baptizing little souls before they die so they can get into Heaven, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t like the baby I aborted was a fucking toddler, for Christ’s sake, it was the size of an apple or a grape.” Luke stood up and walked a few steps away from the sofa. I called after him, “Oh no you don’t. Don’t walk away like you had nothing to do with this. It was your fault I got pregnant this time! You didn’t use a fucking condom!” I looked over at Pam and Emma, as if to convince them to be on my side. I don’t think I’ve ever sworn so much at one time in my life. “He knows I’m so fucking fertile because I told him about all the other abortions I’ve had over the years.” I shook my head angrily. “I warned him that I wasn’t ready to be tied down to pump out a bunch of his screaming brats, but he still trapped me by knocking me up!”
I glared at Luke.
Luke put his hands up on top of his head and blew out a breath. He took another step away.
“And then he had the nerve to propose like that would make it all magically better! You fucking embarrassed me in front of everybody last week pulling that lame shit.” I turned to Pam. “You know what I mean, you were there, Pam.”
Wide-eyed, she stammered out a weak, “Yes.”
Four pairs of stupefied eyes swiveled from Pam back to me, the sixth pair blinked once, and the seventh pair glittered.
Emma cleared her throat. Her voice came out rusty. “You were pregnant and Luke proposed?”
I didn’t respond to her, but gibed at Luke, “Oh, you didn’t mention the part of getting me pregnant to your friends when you were telling them how terrible I was?” I shook my head and taunted maliciously, “Well, I guess I showed you by getting that fucking baby sucked out without your help, didn’t I?” I smiled triumphantly over at Pam, ignoring the gasps of horror I heard from Prissy and Emma. “Yes, it’s true. I had to pay for an abortion entirely myself because this prince of a man was nowhere to be found and didn’t answer my calls all week.”
Pam put her hands to her heart and said, “I didn’t know about this abortion, Bel. I’m so sorry.”
“This abortion,” Emma echoed softly to Pam, squaring her shoulders and moving her head sideways on her neck, as if she had a crick to work out. “Sorry? You’re sorry she killed her baby?”
I brought Emma’s attention back to me by raising my voice. “Hey, don’t get all righteous on me, lady. I didn’t kill my baby. It was a fetus, okay? Besides, an abortion’s just a different form of birth control. No different than anybody taking the pill to prevent a pregnancy or pulling out during sex.” Leaning forward to aggressively address Emma with a pointing, emphasizing finger, I said loudly, “So excuse the fuck out of me if I want to speak my mind here tonight about,” I jerked a thumb over at Luke, “this asshole. I’m not the goddamned bad guy here.”
Dropping his hands from his head, Luke stared coldly at me. “I think we’ve heard enough out of you.”
Priscilla’s shocked face was tight with embarrassed anger, her cheeks a hectic red. She quickly stood up and moved in front of me to go around the table to sit next to Emma. She put a protective hand on her employer’s arm in support, but Emma threw it off and jumped up.
The small woman’s face was white and her voice shook when she declared, “You are an awful, terrible woman.”
Dan’s voice was conciliatory. “Come on, now, let’s take a breath here everybody.”
I stood up, too. Emma’s fists were clenched at her sides and she was shaking like a leaf. Moving slowly, I walked the few steps sideways towards where Luke stood at the end of the coffee table, as I ignored the men and scoffed loudly, “I’m an awful woman? Good Lord, you take the goddamn cake!”
Her pale gray eyes blazed with fury. Emma wasn’t shaking in fear. Her shakes were from the release of adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream in reaction to acute high stress. It was interesting to note her response to the powerful hormone was to fight, not flee.
Emma stepped past Bucky’s feet to close the distance between us, as she commanded sharply, “You stop using the Lord’s name in vain and cursing at me, right now.”
“Or fucking what?” I taunted in derision, “Are you going to tell baby Jesus that I’ve been a bad, bad girl?” Faces a few centimeters apart, I jeered even louder while staring into her red eyes, “Oh, that’s right, you’re Christian and have a direct pipeline to God.” I put a hand to my ear like I held a phone. “Hello, Emma? This is your Lord speaking, so listen up. I don’t want you to have a baby because you’d make a fucking terrible mother, so quit calling me.”
Emma’s furious eyes telegraphed her intent the second before her arm moved. I caught her attempt to bitch slap me an inch before her hand made contact with my cheek.
I flung her arm away and yelled, “Is that how you’d treat a baby? No wonder God won’t let you have kids, you crazy psycho bitch!”
Our fight escalated so fast, the sharp sounds of indrawn breaths almost sucked the oxygen from the room. Dan and Daniel both scrambled to stand up.
Priss attempted to put a comforting hand on Emma’s shoulder, but Emma shrugged her shoulder so violently, it caused Priss to lose her balance and fall back onto the sofa. The blonde landed partially on Pam, who was still seated next to John-Joe.
“Leave me alone,” Emma turned slightly and screamed down at the astounded Prissy, “and stop touching me! I’m so sick of you hanging on me!”
Prissy lifted her arms to ward Emma off, whimpering in shock.
“Emma, calm down,” Dan ordered harshly. He scowled at me and raised a warning hand, “Okay, you heard what Luke said. Emma’s not well and we’ve had enough…”
Emma cut him off and screamed shrilly at me, “God wants me to have a baby! I will have a baby!”
“No He doesn’t or you’d be pregnant. You are unfit to be a mother!” In the back of my mind, I was amazed at the speed of her complete breakdown into babbling hysteria, but I kept pushing. “You’re an awful, unfit woman. I know you are a killer, too.”
“No, no, NO!” she screamed, and held the sides of her head with both hands threaded through her short hair. She pulled hard and shook her head while keening, as if she was in unendurable pain. “I did not mean to do it…”
At those shocking words, I went from rattling a cage to abruptly confronting the woman who had tried to kill me. At those words, I went from playing a part to hot with fury. This was the person that had messed with my life and wanted me dead for reasons I still didn’t fully understand. I watched Emma play the crying, remorseful victim, but I felt no pity. If she wanted to be put out of her misery, I was just the person to help her.
“You did it, didn’t you? You paid to have me killed!” I stood over her and chanted it again, “You are a killer! God knows what you did to that man. You will never have a baby because you are unfit to be a mother!” I screamed in her face, “Tell me! Tell me what you did!”
“Emma, stop! Shut up!” Dan thundered, but was hampered to reach his frantically screaming wife by the large coffee table and John Smith’s legs tangling up with his.
Emma disregarded her husband’s shouts like he was invisible. Nothing existed in the room beyond us. Unstable to begin with, it was obvious the woman was past the point of hearing anything except my voice in her head. I was the terrible voice yelling the condemnations her o
wn mind must have been torturing her with for days.
Racked with shudders, she fell to her knees, as if every word was a physical blow that reaffirmed the guilt that was eating her up inside.
Emma was over the edge, and I went right over the edge with her into the abyss. I did nothing to stop my descent. I was her conscience and her worst nightmare come to life, all rolled into one relentless, merciless, heckling package.
I dropped to my knees beside her, still shouting in her face. “You were drunk last night. Wasted! Trashed! What kind of mother-to-be drinks like that? You’re the killer not me. You are a murderer. You killed a man! God has witnessed every terrible thing you’ve done. You are a fucking rotten human being and you do not ever deserve to be a mother. Never!”
Rocking violently to and fro on her knees, the slight woman locked eyes with me. “Leave me alone--it wasn’t my fault! This shouldn’t have happened!”
“You killed a man, Emma. It happened, and you are going to pay. Now you will never have a baby.” I stared back in her eyes and repeated, “Never.”
As my words pounded her without stopping, Emma’s face collapsed inward into a twisted mask of pain. A kaleidoscope of emotions fought for supremacy-- guilt, fury, remorse, cunning, defeat--and the fury won.
“You should have died!” Her primal scream was raw, as if she’d torn her throat to shreds.
Emma launched herself at me with clawed hands and we fell back onto the floor, Emma on top. She pummeled me with her fists while she screamed her confession that she only wanted to have a baby. I let her shout and hit, only crossing my arms defensively. Emma White’s aggressive actions proved to me that she was no victim, then or now.
Luke grabbed Emma around the waist and hauled her off. He threw the wildly swinging woman at John Smith, who had jumped up to assist. Luke pulled me up off the floor and I nodded I was okay, my eyes still on Emma.
John wrapped his arms around Emma in a tight vice and carried the sobbing woman to her husband.
Dan enveloped the shaking, weeping wreck of a woman in his arms. “Shush, enough, Emma, enough. It’s over, shush.” Over her head, his chin was high, but his eyes were pleading as he looked at Daniel first, and then over to Luke. “I didn’t know this until last night.”
“I am sorry, it was an accident…I didn’t mean to hurt anybody!” Emma mumbled over and over through her tears, weakly striking Dan’s shoulder with her fist.
Daniel’s face was stricken as he watched Dan rock Emma. After a moment, the big man’s hand wiped his face and his agonized glance wandered from them, passed unseeingly over Prissy, and landed on Luke and me on the opposite side of the room.
Daniel didn’t acknowledge my existence, but swallowed and entreated to Luke, “Buddy, we need to talk.”
Priss still lay back on the sofa against Pam where she had landed when thrown by Emma. Nobody was looking at her, so she burst into tears that were noisier than the keening Emma.
Pam’s eyes and mouth were still large Os at what she had witnessed.
At Prissy’s outburst of tears, Pam didn’t look down, but casually clamped her hand over the woman’s mouth. Maybe even her nose, if Prissy Power’s frantically kicking feet meant anything. Pam said, “Shut up, Texas.”
John Smith met my eyes. The snake man grinned and winked. Unexpectedly, I was so shaken that I barely had the strength to give him the finger, but I did.
Acting like a foul-mouthed, baby-killing ex-girlfriend to drive a sick woman into a fucked up mess of quivering human misery for a confession was not the fun it was cracked up to be. As my rage drained and I listened to Emma sob in Dan’s arms, I was relieved to know my attempted killer was caught, but not feeling too proud of my accomplishment.
I might have to add a new person to the growing list of people that hated Anabel Axelrod--me.
I felt the tingles of an imminent stroke again. My legs went wobbly. I would have collapsed onto the floor if Luke didn’t have his arms wrapped tightly around me. But my boyfriend had me and he wasn’t letting go.
I heard the clippity-clop of heels coming towards us from the hallway and looked up sharply to meet Luke’s gaze. The dancing amusement at my reaction almost covered the worry I saw reflected in the beautiful green eyes gazing down at me.
“This house is trashed AND you let her wear those heels on Uncle Benny’s hardwood floors?” I hissed in disbelief.
Luke’s answer was to tenderly kiss each of my flushed cheeks and passionately kiss my parted lips. He didn’t normally give me tongue in front of a roomful of sobbing, keening, gaping people, but in the throes of my possible cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, I didn’t mind sucking on his because it may help if I seized.
“It’s the whore!” Pam cried out in warning, “Bel, stop kissing Luke, it’s the whore!”
Lost in my war-god’s strong arms, I vaguely heard Pam, but for all I cared she could have been shouting, “The British are coming, the British are coming!”
Luke lifted his head and ended our kiss. I could feel his eyes hot on my face. “Open your eyes, Anabel.”
“No,” I stubbornly refused. “Not until you make them all disappear.”
“Soon we’ll disappear,” he crooned in promise, kissing me again. He smoothed a hand over my ass and gave it a squeeze. “Now, suck it up, Buttercup, we’ve got more work to do.”
I opened my eyes and muttered, “You and your sweet-talking ways.”
The un-cousin stopped at the threshold of the living room, a vision straight out of my worst Strawberry Shortcake nightmare. A jaunty cap with the bill turned sideways sat atop her recently tinted reddish-blonde hair. The over-processed locks of straw hung straight to her shoulders and then flipped up to form a uniform curl. A white blouse with a peter pan collar struggled to contain her 34EEEs while a pink flared skirt, white tights, and shiny red high-heeled Mary Jane’s completed the hideously bizarre caricature of a young girl’s outfit.
Pam hyperventilated on the sofa, but everybody else had their backs to the doorway. The un-cousin did not look in Pam’s direction, or in mine. She kept her eyes carefully trained on my boyfriend and said in a bored monotone, “Got it, Boss.”
He nodded and she whirled around without another word to clippity-clop away.
Luke squeezed my waist and murmured in a low voice only I could hear, “Guess who has a new video of his favorite movie star to add to his collection?”
Luke’s cell vibrated. He answered Jack’s prearranged call. “It’s done. Our bait delivered the goods, Chief.”
The spray-tanned lump on my forehead throbbed at the news Luke had recorded everything.
“Did she call you Boss?” I repeated incredulously.
Chapter XXII
“Leather and Lace” by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley
Sunday, 12/17
12:30 AM
Several things happened in the next hour.
The freak snowstorm was still dumping down the white stuff, but the wind was no longer blowing white out conditions. Chief Jack had agreed to give Luke an hour to wrap things up with his partners. After that, the snowplow truck was driving Jack and his passengers to Northfield.
Luke and John Smith oversaw while Dan White dosed the distraught Emma with whatever drugs she used, although I’m sure if needed, Luke could have supplied a sedative from his mini-hospital in the secret bunker. They sat with Emma in the bedroom until she fell asleep, which didn’t take long.
On Luke’s orders, the un-cousin stayed in the bedroom after that to monitor the unconscious Emma while the men met to discuss the situation.
That wasn’t as sexist as it sounded. Luke invited me to participate in the bat cave meeting, and I appreciated his offer, but I demurred for a couple of reasons.
The first was his partners would be extremely uncomfortable with me there, especially Dan White. Not that I cared a great deal about Dan’s feelings, but I did for Luke’s. By their reactions when Emma broke down, Dan White and Daniel Boynton had some explaining to do t
o their third partner. I didn’t envy those guys because underneath Luke’s care and concern for me lurked a cold rage at the evidence his partners had somehow betrayed him. So had Emma, a woman they’d all trusted. I felt Luke’s pain.
Whatever future conversations may reveal of Emma’s personal motivations to commit her crimes, the end result was she coldly planned to kill Luke’s girlfriend. A person didn’t get much more ruthlessly heinous than that, regardless of how sorry and pitiful she appeared now that she was caught. Luke did not need my presence there to make a difficult situation with his partners harder. If it was necessary, I believed John Smith would have Luke’s back in that DDL meeting.
The second reason was I had a kitchen that needed cleaning.
The instant the men had disappeared down the basement stairs, Pam demanded in a furious whisper to know why I had allowed Luke to shove his tongue down my throat. That seemed like a fair enough question, considering the circumstances. I thought Pam was going to crap her pants when I confirmed we had faked our break up to keep me safe, and the un-cousin was never his lover.
Bucky hadn’t known the reason for Pammie’s whooping exuberance, but by then, she was totally wary of my tiny friend after almost being smothered on the sofa.
The Texan had staggered after me to the kitchen and held herself up against the counter to stare in benumbed amazement as Pam had joyfully swung me around the room at my news.
Then I forced Prissy Powers to wash the dishes.
Was it wrong of me to force Bucky to work under the threat of cutting off her long, blonde hair with a dirty steak knife?
I totally agree it wasn’t my fault Bucky’s upbringing was so lacking that she could think for one micromort such piggish behavior was acceptable in a houseguest. They were staying on a farm, for pity’s sake. It was a constant battle to keep rodents out of the house. We didn’t need to lure them in by offering up dinner in a filthy kitchen, so they could later dine on us if we were ever tied up and unable to escape, which I knew for a fact could happen.
