Steal Me (Longshadows Book 1)

by Natalia Banks

  “You don’t have to worry, Kathleen. Why would you think I’d ever hurt you? That’s not the kind of person I am.”

  “I have no idea what kind of person you really are,” she snapped back, fingers caning around that rubber handle. “Married? Really, Mitchell!”

  “Okay, I know it…it wasn’t great.”

  “How do you even get any fucking writing done? A team of ghostwriters, I would imagine.” She instantly recognized his mischievous but bashful half-smile. Her disgust quickly returned and she could only shake her head. “Unbelievable. You’re pure bullshit through and through.”

  Mitchell took a step toward her, and she a matching step back, the aluminum bat still high and ready. But it would take a lucky blow if he advanced quickly, and both of them seemed to realize it.

  “Like I said, I don’t blame you for being upset. I know I’ve hurt you, and I’m really, really sorry about it.”

  “Uh-huh, is that it? Is that what you came all the way down here to say?”

  “It’s really not that far; my wife and I have a place on the Upper West Side—”

  “Then get the hell back there, you scumbag,” she said, her advance putting him two steps backward toward the door.

  “I will, Kat, I will, but I just want to know that, well, that we’re parting as friends.”

  “We’re not. Fuck off,” Kat exclaimed bluntly.

  “Okay, not friends, I get that, but, y’know, at least we can both walk away and not, y’know, go on reliving it through a lot of small talk or newspaper interviews or anything like that.”

  Kat could finally see the real reason for his visit—his true intent. “You want me to keep quiet about all this, your double life, our affair … God, just saying it makes me sick.”

  “Exactly,” Mitchell said, leaning forward and shrugging to punctuate his point, “that’s what I’m saying. Let’s just get on with our lives, leave it behind us. Why keep drudging up the past?”

  “Especially when it could hurt your career.”

  “And my marriage.” After a calculated pause, Mitchell said, “And it wouldn’t do anything for you either.” She turned her head to better hear the truth behind what Mitchell was trying not to say. But he went on, “Professional child’s entertainer has torrid affair, with a man she met at a professional function?”

  Kat had tried not to think about it: a lapse in professional judgement that she was always afraid would snap back and bite her on the ass. But there were other things at stake, including her pride, her self-respect, and her personal safety.

  “That’s no worse than an author who doesn’t write his own books, and has a double life—”

  “You can’t prove the first thing,” Mitchell said, his eyes locking on hers, “and you really won’t be able to prove the other.”

  Driven by a need not to back down to Mitchell even a single further step, she felt compelled to asked, “Why not? We were together for six months.”

  “Nothing that you can prove; you’ve got no pictures, no witnesses.”

  “I told my friends, my family—” Kat retorted.

  “The delusions of a crazed fan, like I told my wife. And that’ll really look bad: a deranged party clown who stalks her clients? You’ll be finished, Kathleen, you and everybody you work with.” Her lungs were robbed of breath and her mind vacant of any response. Mitchell seemed to know he’d won. “Let it go, Kathleen.” And there was more to that than simply practical advice.

  It was a threat.

  “Just get the hell out of my sight,” she said, repulsed by every fiber of his being, advancing and easing him backward out the still-opened front door.

  “Goodbye, Kathleen Le Fleur,” he said as he faded into the hallway, “goodbye forever.” He turned, and Kat slammed the door closed behind him.

  Chapter 5

  Kat

  Jackie put away the chardonnay and pulled out the Jack Daniels. “Think about this a minute, boo.”

  “I’ve thought about nothing else!” Kat confessed with sheer exhaustion in her voice. Jackie put the pair of shot glasses down and filled them. “Jackie, it’s not even three in the afternoon.”

  “It’s five o’clock somewhere, and you gotta get your happy hour on. Drink that.” Jackie raised the glass to her own face, but Kat hesitated. “Kitty Kat, doctor’s orders…” Kat couldn’t find a reason not to share a drink with a good friend to mark her decision to leave New York and go back to Tucson.

  The Jack was hot and sweet, burning her throat as it went down, a warmth gathering in her belly. Jackie filled another. “First of all, why didn’t you whack him in the head?”

  She shrugged and picked up the shot glass. “He didn’t give me a reason.”

  “He gave you a million reasons, just to give him one to remember you by.” They sucked down the second shots. “Anyway, what about the company?”

  “I’ll take it back to Tucson; Ben will run things here. Really, Jackie, maybe it is time for a change.”

  “But that’s not a change,” Jackie said, putting a supportive hand on Kat’s knee. “That’s going back to the same life you used to have. You want a change? Go to Europe or something.”

  “With what? I’m barely getting by here. If I’m not working, I’m in trouble.” Other images flashed across her mind’s eye: some old woman working on a family cruise ship, aging at the bar; a parade of increasingly unpleasant-looking tourists engaging her in trysts that would only drain her of her youth, her beauty, her self-respect. “And I think I’m just a little too old for the happy wanderer routine,” she added, the easiest way to put the idea aside.

  “So you’re just gonna go back to Tucson, Arizona, be somebody’s aunt, maybe somebody’s wife.”

  “Yeah, sure. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, nothing, it’s fine. And if that’s what you want, Kat, then that’s what I want for you. But I just hate to think of you, y’know, settling for some boring life somewhere.”

  “‘There’s a lot of beauty in daily life,’ my father always used to say,” Kat reminisced warmly.

  “Well, that depends on how you spend your days, doesn’t it?” After another shot, Jackie said, “Tell you what. You remember that kidnapping thing we talked about?”

  “No, Jackie—”

  “Just give it some thought.”

  “Why?”

  Jackie’s voice became low and serious. “Because you’re about to step back into a life of drudgery and boredom and I just know that, sooner or later, you’re gonna regret it. So I think you should have one more big fling, something you’ll never have a chance to enjoy again.”

  “I’m sure I can’t afford it.”

  “I’ll pay. Call it a good-bye gift. You’ve been such a good friend to me, Kat; you’re such a sweet girl. You deserve it.”

  “To be kidnapped?” Kat laughed at the idea. Smiling at how the adventurous spirit lived within her amazing roommate and close friend.

  “Exactly.” Jackie smiled devilishly.

  Kat turned and crossed the apartment, staring out the window as she sipped at her third shot. “I dunno, Jackie, I…. How does such a thing even work?”

  “I think I set up an appointment, you go down and have an interview. It’s easy. Look, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want, but they do have a free consultation.”

  “Free—? Are they a sex service or accident lawyers?”

  “Neither one.” Jackie snickered. “Like I said, you don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do…. I don’t think.”

  “I’m not sure that’s good enough for me. Would you do it?” Kat asked with a curious sparkle in her eye.

  Jackie took a shot and poured another, using that sliver of time to give it reasonable consideration. “It doesn’t really sound like my kind of thing—”

  “Well it’s certainly not my kind of thing!” Kat howled, feeling the buzz of the shots they took kicking in.

  “But if I was in your position, and I had the chance to do it f
or free? Yeah, I’d probably go for it.”

  After a tantalizing pause, Kat was surprised to hear herself ask, “Would you go down with me, for the interview?”

  “Sure I will,” Jackie was quick to say, almost too quick. “Lemme make a call, see what I can do.”

  Both girls yelled “Cheers!” in unison, clinked shot glasses, and took their final shot of whiskey. Kat gazed upon the clotheslines and tenements of Brooklyn—vast and decrepit. What’s waiting for me out there? No, I should go now, go back to Tucson while I still have a chance.

  Instead, she said, “I don’t suppose just going down for a free consultation would do much harm.”

  Kat didn’t feel good about the gig in Central Park the next day. The whole day had an eerie, dreamy aspect—an unusual haze spread out beneath the spring sky. The children were jumping around chaotically, not the way they’d normally be lined-up for balloons, for face-painting, sitting quietly for the magic show. The parents were ignoring them as usual, drinking too much and laughing too loud.

  Kat looked down at her outfit: a purple dress with pink tights, a red scarf around her neck, and a red wig on her head. She couldn’t forget Ben’s joke about how she’d look dressed as the character, Daphne, from the Scooby Doo gang. She could sense the hidden stares of the men in the family, the fathers of the visiting children. They seemed to be reliving childhood fantasies of the sexy hippie chick they lusted after, their creepy stares making her feel even more conspicuous in that short dress and those pink tights. They were looking her up and down, eyes combing her still-supple curves, she assumed wicked fantasies playing out in their imaginations and not nearly for the first time.

  And while Kat was accustomed to running a party, to corralling the kids and keeping the events on schedule, on this day she felt oddly numb, quiet, as if speaking at all was beyond her. All she could really do was stand in that swirl of screaming, running children and drunken adults—men leering, a cool wind blowing in from the east.

  Kat turned to see Ben in the full-body Scooby Doo costume, only a few yards away. He hated wearing those costumes, and she knew it. But that was the deal and there was a job to be done.

  But instead of capering and goofing with the kids, dancing and rubbing the tops of their little heads, he was just standing there staring at Kathleen, arms slack at his sides, pressboard head staring at her with dead, felt eyes. The black screen of the mouth disguised Ben’s face.

  At least she thought it was Ben.

  “Let’s get to work,” she said, her voice reverberating around her—a strange and swirling echo which didn’t seem to fade. But Ben just stood there staring at her. “C’mon, the kids are running wild!”

  Kat looked around, holding her hands out to the children, but they were gone. In fact, the entire section of the park was empty around them: no kids, no parents, no pedestrians or passersby. Just the trailing streamers hanging from the trees, the odd round balloon floating on the breeze, and soiled paper plates scattered on the grass.

  Kat looked back at Ben in the big dog costume, her heart beating faster as she stepped back and he stepped forward. “Ben? Ben, stop it. Stop it! We have to go to work.”

  But a slow nod of that big dog head told Kat that she was right, but in ways she couldn’t have imagined, never would have meant, and seemed to have little chance of surviving.

  That was the deal and there was a job to be done.

  Ben approached, taller and thinner than he should have been, resembling Mitchell’s frame. But…how? Where’s Ben?

  There was no more time to think, only to turn and run for her life. But she turned and stopped short with a terrified gasp: a tall man in a white sweater, blue-collar shirt, blond hair, and a red ascot. He grinned, handsome and evil, his hands finding her arms, her hips. Kat screamed and swatted at him, unable to comprehend what she already understood. Something terrible and strange was happening.

  By then the chubby girl from Scooby Doo had appeared, a burgundy sweater over her heaving breasts, glasses big and awkward under her brown bob.

  Velma snarled, “Come here, you little bitch!” And by then Kat was surrounded by the pair, each one grabbing one of her arms.

  “Stop it,” Kat shrieked, struggling to recognize the actors behind the costumes. As far as she could tell, these characters had come to life, and they were turning on her with rapacious aggression and surprise, which combined with their numbers made her abduction impossible to escape. But she needed to try. “Get your filthy hands off me!”

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.” Fred grinned at her from the right, fingers tight around her arms, which he couldn’t wrench free. “It’s time, Red…. It’s finally time.”

  “Time for what?” she asked, already knowing the answer. “What are you doing to me? Let me go!” But they only dragged her across a big stretch of grass in Central Park, the man in the dog costume walking with a purposeful stride, Fred and Velma on either side holding her arms in a tight grip to take her to an uncertain face that was even then streaming toward them. The famous green-and-blue van roared up from the other side of the meadow, tires tearing up the grass, the familiar hippie in the green shirt sitting behind the steering wheel, his scraggily beard matching his shaggy hair. He pulled up and screeched to a stop, cackling a horrific laughter before climbing out of the driver’s seat and scurrying into the back.

  The van’s side door slid open as Scooby arrived and turned, waving Fred and Velma toward him to toss Kat into the van.

  She knew that once they got her into that van, her destiny would be nearly sealed. She had no idea what was in that van: chains, whips, chloroform, but she wouldn’t have much of a chance once that door slammed shut.

  Kat pulled as they dragged her forward, her feet slipping on the wet grass, her legs unable to slow their terrible progress. The two cold-blooded villains surrounding her held her with menace and aggression, and she threw some verbal power behind her efforts to break free. “Let…me…go!”

  But as that van got closer, Kat finally knew the feeling consuming her. It was fear, but it was more than that. She knew behind the vague veil of confusion and delirium that she’d put herself in that position, that what was happening was in some strange way what she wanted to happen, something she herself created.

  And that terrified her even more.

  And she loved it.

  So she struggled even harder, flailing and trying to kick at her assailants, her heels bouncing off their shins, their thighs, not even slowing them down. “No, stop,” she shouted, knowing they wouldn’t, and glad of it. “What do you want with me?”

  But she already knew.

  Then Shaggy jumped out of the van’s side door with an evil howl, more animal than man. As Scooby Doo climbed into the van behind him, Shaggy wrapped his arms around her legs, pinning them together and rendering them useless.

  “Zoinks!” he shouted, cackling from his stooped posture, head down low.

  Kat flexed and bucked, helpless to free herself from the three-pointed grip, both legs and arms tightly pinned as they pulled her into the van, sunlight disappearing from around her.

  The door slammed shut and darkness surrounded her once more, perhaps for the very last time.

  Kathleen’s eyes shot up as she bolted up in bed, heart racing, skin dewy with cold sweat. She looked around her dark bedroom, silent and still, moonlight streaming in through the window. She was alone, she was safe.

  And as much as she would have liked lying to herself, she was also disappointed.

  Chapter 6

  Kat

  No matter what, she couldn’t get the dream out of her mind. Even as she sorted through her balloons and other gear, deciding what to give away and what to bring with her, the dream kept flashing in her memory, and its meanings wormed their way into her psyche.

  It’s just my mind’s way of telling me to get out of New York, get back to Tucson where I belong. The Scooby Doo Gang? It has everything to do with Ben and those costumes and the
whole stupid industry.

  But it meant more than that, and she knew it all too well. It’s something I’m afraid of, something here, in this city, or it wouldn’t have been in Central Park. It’s the homeless guys walking around menacing the parties, it’s Mitchell making threats, it’s everything around me, closing in on all sides. Either way, all roads lead in one direction: out of this damned city.

  And it meant even more than that, something even more difficult for her to get her head or her heart around. She’d been turned on by that dream, of being besieged and abducted, carted off struggling. She was no longer an actress in that dream, she was the damsel herself. She was Faye Wray in that old black-and-white King Kong movie. No longer some loser from Tucson, Arizona, Kathleen Le Fleur was 99 from the reruns of the TV show Get Smart. She was Diana Rigg’s dynamic British dynamo, Emma Peel, and Yvonne Craig’s brave and beautiful Batgirl, forever righteous and plucky and deliciously overwhelmed before a triumphant escape. Like the characters she’d seen in these and other reruns, Kathleen was beautiful, she was daring.

  And she was kidnapped.

  But all this was too much to explain to Jackie, and it really wasn’t necessary. And it was too late anyway.

  The Longshadows offices were very slick, in a nice part of the Upper West Side. With glass walls, chrome fixtures and classy paintings of swirling, abstract images, it could have been a law office or an accounting firm. Before going in, Kat stopped Jackie and gushed, “Jackie, no matter how this meeting goes today, I just want to thank you. This whole thing is crazy, but honestly, the more I’ve been thinking about it, the more excited I am! I mean, I’ve always been a rule follower, the good girl, you know that…but the thought of having a gorgeous man, hunt me down like prey and want to ravage me; the whole thing really turns me on! I think too, because all the credentials are in place, and everyone is checked out." Kat was babbling on, a mile a minute, before Jackie smiled and stopped her. "Girl, everyone has unexplored desires; life is supposed to be fun right?! You’re just learning to embrace your sexuality and live a little! Let’s go see what this is all about before we get too ahead of ourselves."