Intentional Acts

by Melissa F. Miller

  She stared down at the letters fanned out on her floor.

  It couldn’t be that easy.

  Could it?

  An image of her hands lifting a well-used Scrabble box out of Essiah’s locker flashed in her mind.

  Her pulse fluttered.

  She shoved the rest of the tiles into the bag and flipped the playing board open to study the tile distribution and value chart printed along the left side of the board. She grabbed a pen and the top sheet from her stack of copies and examined the rows of numbers.

  She shifted her attention to the chart then back to the numbers. And then she tossed her pen on the desk in disgust. There were too many possible letters that ‘1’ could represent. If he’d used his Scrabble tiles, she’d never figure it out.

  She stared harder at the sheet.

  He hadn’t just used the tiles. He’d used the board layout, too. Series of figures branched off from one another vertically and horizontally, but never diagonally.

  If she could just determine a handful of the keystone words, she’d probably be able to figure out the ones that branched off them, too. There was only one ‘K’ tile, worth five points. She’d start there.

  Of course, there weren’t any Ks on the first sheet. She flipped through the pages and wrote a ‘K’ in place of every ‘5.’ Her brain buzzed. This was almost as satisfying as finding the perfect case to fit a client’s fact pattern.

  Assuming it works, she cautioned herself.

  Back to the chart. Now for the ten-pointers. She dug through Connelly’s pencil cup until she found one with both a point and an eraser. She wrote a ‘Q/Z’ for every instance of a ‘10.’

  It was going to get trickier as the more common values came into play. There were ten possible letters that a ‘1’ could represent. But, she reasoned, five of those were vowels, and she’d be able to tell by their position within words whether some of them were vowels or consonants. Her Sunday morning crossword puzzle habit was about to pay dividends.

  She spread out the papers and got to work.

  When she looked up, the sun had dipped out of view and the clock over the desk showed it was nearly seven o’clock. She reached for her phone and thumbed out a text to her mother:

  Can kids spend the night? Deadline. I’ll owe you.

  The response came through instantly:

  Don’t be silly. We’d love to keep them. I have pjs in the spare room from last time.

  She exhaled:

  Thanks.

  Another text came through:

  Finn says he hasn’t seen daddy in weeks. That’s not true, is it?

  She shook her head:

  No. He’s not the most reliable timekeeper, Mom. Everything’s fine here. We just both have time-sensitive things for work and L had to travel this week. Thanks for helping with the kids. XOXOXO

  She discarded the phone and looked down at her progress so far:

  She laughed out loud. She did it. She cracked the code.

  She reached for her phone again. Should she call Connelly first? Or Hank? She hesitated.

  She owed it to Essiah Wheaton to figure out everything he knew. After all, he’d been murdered because of his knowledge. What if Leo and Hank turned the papers over to the NCTC or the FBI or whoever, and they decided not to pursue anything? Essiah would’ve died in vain.

  You have the copies, remember? Just give them the originals and keep working. You don’t even have to tell them you figured it out.

  That last part would never fly, she knew. Connelly would take one look at her face and know. She rubbed at a tight knot in her neck and tried to decide what to do next. Her phone’s battery blinked red and then shut down, drained.

  Well that settles that, she thought. She wouldn’t be calling anyone until she charged her phone. She found Connelly’s charger in the tangle of wires and cords on the desk, plugged in the dead device, and returned to the code.

  Within minutes, a motive for murder had appeared on the page:

  BROTHERHOOD OPENED SEVEN REVOLVING CREDIT LINES WITH BOGUS DOCUMENTS

  USED THEM TO LAUNDER MONEY FROM ARMS SALES

  CHUCK ACCESSED BANK LINK FROM MY MACHINE

  LOANS GENERATED UNDER MY ID

  QUESTIONED FLH ABOUT ACTIVITY

  TOLD TO ZIP MY MOUTH IF I WANTED TO LIVE

  Below the window, two of the bright motion-sensing lights bloomed to life in the backyard. Mocha started barking and raced up the stairs from the kitchen. Java, who was sleeping atop the printer, opened one eye at the racket.

  Mocha skidded to a stop at her feet and whined.

  “What’s the matter, boy? Did a squirrel set off the lights again? You’re gonna get that squirrel someday, yes you are.”

  She scratched behind his ears. He was never going to get close to that squirrel. But everybody needed to have a dream.

  From downstairs, the sound of shattering glass echoed through the house.

  She froze and tried to listen over the sound of blood rushing in her ears.

  The crashing noise had come from the kitchen. The window over the sink, maybe.

  Mocha bared his teeth. She pulled her hand back. He never growled. But that was a definite growl rumbling in his chest.

  He seemed to shrink, making himself low to the ground. His ears were flattened over his head. He crept under the desk, covered his nose with his paws, and whimpered.

  Java got to his feet, puffed himself out like a furball, and jumped lightly to the floor. He ran under the desk and wedged himself in the corner behind the dog.

  Gooseflesh rose on her arms. Her heart thumped.

  “Okay, you two are freaking me out.”

  The house was too still. And her animals knew. Something was wrong.

  She grabbed the stack of papers she’d been working on. Nearly running, she wheeled the desk chair to the closet. She pulled the gun safe down to the floor and crouched in front of it.

  She slammed her index finger on the fingerprint reader and waited, jittering her leg.

  The light flashed, the beep sounded, and the spring-loaded door opened. Her breathing was fast, shallow. She did not need to be operating with insufficient oxygen right now. She forced herself to take deep, slow breaths.

  She heard the creak of the loose floorboard on the eighth step from the top of the stairs.

  Someone was coming.

  She exhaled then reached inside for the Sig Sauer. She felt nothing but air?

  Not possible.

  She peered inside. Empty.

  Her heart thudded and her mind spun dizzily. This wasn’t possible. It had been here the night before last. She’d held it in her hands.

  The laundry.

  Connelly had been home. Why he needed two handguns, she had no idea. What she did know was there was an intruder in her home. She was unarmed. The only phone on the premises had a dead battery. And she was holding a stack of papers the Heritage Brotherhood was willing to kill for.

  She didn’t like her odds.

  She shoved the copies inside the safe then closed and locked it. She stood up and pulled the closet doors closed without a sound.

  She sidled along the wall until she reached the doorway, then she yanked the door shut and locked it from the inside.

  Avoid the conflict.

  She’d caught a glimpse of the man’s startled face just before she slammed the door closed. She recognized him. He was the taller of the two guys from the bar—the one who’d escaped from the police. And he had a gun. It dangled loosely from his right hand.

  He yelled through the door. “I want Wheaton’s papers.” Venom laced his words.

  “Okay, sure. But I’ll tell you right now, they’re written in code. I can’t make heads or tails of it.” She walked to the desk and grabbed the originals. She bumped the bottoms of the pages against the desk to square the edges then she walked back to the closed door.

  She lay on her stomach. “I’m slipping them under the door. There are almost twenty pages. So, I’ll do two sets, oka
y?”

  “Just open the door.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She slid the first half of the pages under the door and peered through the crack until she saw him bend to pick them up. He gathered them and stood up.

  “These are just rows of numbers.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did. Here come the rest.” She pushed them under the door.

  This time he lay down out in the hallway and stared under the crack at her. She saw one brown eye and part of his eyebrow.

  “How do I know that’s everything?”

  “I guess you’re going to have to take my word for it.”

  “That’s not good enough!” He was yelling.

  “Listen, do you really think I’m going to let you come in here so you can shoot me? Really?”

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  “So, talk. I can hear you, but I’m not opening the door.”

  He stood up and pounded his fist against the door.

  Under the desk, Mocha started to cry.

  “What’s that noise?”

  “Mocha, my dog. He’s hiding under the desk. So’s the cat. I gave you the papers. Leave.”

  He hammered at the door, harder. The wood was vibrating. She figured it was a matter of time before he broke the thing down.

  He obviously didn’t intend to let her live. She’d given him what he wanted. The only reason he would want access to her now was to kill her. And she wasn’t just going to sit in here all night and wait for him to do it.

  Avoidance hadn’t worked. Neither had de-escalation. Her next tactic would be to escape.

  She crept over to the charger and checked her phone. The battery was at one percent. Not enough juice to call Connelly or Hank.

  She glanced at the closet, cursing her luck. She couldn’t believe Connelly’d taken the gun; not after all the times he’d practically begged her to learn to shoot so she could defend herself.

  Of course, the gun wouldn’t have done her much good. She didn’t know how to use it. She did, however, know how take down an armed assailant. But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Sasha tiptoed to the door on the east wall, which led to a shared Jack and Jill bathroom. The bathroom had a second door that opened into a guest bedroom she used for practicing yoga and storing mountains of client files.

  She slipped out of the bathroom and slunk through the darkened room. She pressed herself against the wall and peeked out into the hall.

  The guy was stretched out on the floor, still looking under the door. But as she watched, he pulled himself to his feet and turned sideways, getting ready to ram his shoulder into the door.

  He was tall, taller than Connelly even, but he was thin. Unless he was much stronger than he looked, it would take him several tries to splinter the door. She might as well let him tire himself out for a bit.

  He reared back and ran toward the door. She heard the impact, but the door held. For now.

  He did it again. Both times, he led with his left shoulder and kept the gun in his right, aiming for the center of the door.

  Now, he stopped, rubbed his shoulder, and switched the gun to his left hand. He pivoted and drove his right shoulder into the door. The wood cracked loudly as it broke apart.

  Using the noise as cover, she raced out of the guest bedroom and clattered down the stairs. He shouted and came barreling down the steps behind her.

  She tore through the living room to the front door, scanning the room for something, anything, to use as a weapon. Nothing remotely promising caught her eye.

  Too late, she felt something under her foot and looked down in time to watch herself slip on a blue cylindrical wooden block from the twins building set. Her ankle rolled to the side and she yelped.

  She tried to regain her balance but she was moving too quickly to recalibrate. She flew up and over the block structure then landed with a thud on her side. Colorful blocks scattered across the floor.

  She clambered to her knees.

  Her assailant caught up to her and grabbed a chunk of her hair, wrapped it around his left fist, and yanked back on her head with enough force to make her eyes water. The barrel of the gun pressed into the back of her head.

  This was a very bad position to be in. On her knees, with no leverage, and a gun she could neither see nor reach pointed at the back of her head, execution-style.

  She closed her eyes and willed herself to stay calm. The victor in this battle would be whoever managed to stay in control. She gathered her thoughts, opened her eyes, and twisted her head to see him. Her scalp protested the motion; it felt as if her hair were being ripped out by the roots.

  She panted. “I lied to you. I did figure out the code.”

  She watched for the moment when he started to process her words. His eyes flitted briefly away from hers while he tried to decide if she was telling the truth.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. Just let go of my hair so I can think and I’ll tell you.”

  “Turn back around. Keep your eyes forward.”

  She did as he said. He released his grip on her hair but pushed the gun into her skull as a warning.

  “Start talking.”

  “He was a Scrabble player. Do you play?”

  “What?”

  “Do you understand the point values of the letter tiles?”

  She waited for him to answer. Daniel had pounded the principle into her skull, and her experience confirmed it: The best time to disarm someone is when they’re distracted.

  “Sure,” he said. “The more common the letter is the fewer points it’s worth, but the—”

  She shifted her body weight to the left, out of the line of fire, and turned slightly while she shot her right hand up and clamped it down over the top of the barrel of the gun.

  He yanked back on the weapon.

  With her dominant left hand, she grabbed the inside of his right wrist and immobilized his right forearm.

  He swung his left fist around and punched her in the side of the head. Her face vibrated from the strike.

  She pulled his right arm forward over her shoulder, pushed his hand and the gun to the right, and twisted them both sideways, gaining control of the gun’s trajectory. She planted her feet under her and pushed her body weight back so that her shoulder drove into his locked elbow.

  Then she pushed down on his wrist and slammed it against the floor while yanking on the gun with her other hand. He cursed, red-faced with pain, and his grip loosened. She wrenched the weapon free and sent it skittering across the room.

  She pulled him forward while she flipped onto her back.

  She was basically under him now—a terrible position that would have made Daniel foam at the mouth. But she still controlled his dominant hand. So, all in all, it wasn’t the worst ground fight she’d experienced.

  He punched at her with his left hand. She rolled her head to the side and the blow glanced off.

  Wishing she weren’t barefoot, she aimed a flurry of kicks directly between his legs with her right leg. He grunted and lurched forward.

  She straightened her leg and planted a rock-solid kick on the bottom of his chin. Then she extended her leg again and kicked him square in the nose.

  He tore his right arm free of her grip and pinned her to the ground with his knees. He pressed his left hand down on her right shoulder, forcing her arm up over her head.

  Well, she acknowledged, this ground fight just got a lot worse.

  She groped around behind her blindly with her right hand until she reached one of the large rectangular blocks that formed the base of almost all castles and forts the kids made. She wrapped her fingers around it and clamped her fist shut.

  She was only going to get one chance at this.

  With her free left hand, she grabbed a fistful of his tee shirt and pulled him close, yanking his head toward her as if she were going to kiss him. At the same time
she lifted her shoulders and neck from the ground, moving up to meet him.

  Confusion clouded his face.

  She seized the moment to rotate her right shoulder inward toward her ear and twist her shoulder free from his grasp. She swung her right arm up as if she were casting a fishing line and brought it around to the unprotected back of his head and smashed the block into the groove behind his mastoid bone, right in the small hollow where his neck muscles met his skull.

  His eyes went blank from the blow to the lesser occipital nerve, and he lost consciousness instantly.

  Yes.

  Her celebration at knocking him out was cut short by the realization that he was pitching forward, straight toward her, like a felled tree.

  Crap.

  She struggled to free herself, but she was trapped. She tucked her chin and turned her head to avoid a direct hit and his massive forehead bounced off her temple before continuing its journey to the floor.

  He landed with a resounding thud that sounded just a bit too thunderous to her ringing ears. She turned woozily to see Connelly, followed by Hank, crash through the front door, guns drawn.

  She pushed her assailant to the side and wiped away the blood streaming down the side of her face. She staggered to her feet and turned to greet her husband, swaying slightly. Then the world went black.

  39

  “I’m fine,” Sasha insisted weakly.

  Connelly pursed his lips like a strict teacher. “Shhh.”

  She struggled to pull herself upright against the piles of pillows. Java protested the movement and dug her claws into Sasha’s lap.

  “I’m serious. It was a glancing blow.”

  “And I’m serious. You need to rest.”

  “I don’t have a concussion. The EMT said it as clear as day before he left. I have a headache and some slight dizziness. That’s it.”

  Also some nausea, blurred vision, and ringing in her ears, but he was already overreacting. No need to give him more ammunition.

  “And there’s no harm in staying up tonight to keep an eye on you, just in case.”