Duty Bound

by Samantha Chase

  Gavin was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Not even uncovering answers could change that. Levi was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. Brooding about what I was missing wouldn’t accomplish anything at all.

  I’d go get my notes. Start to work on a new story.

  I could be me again—just a little wiser now.

  I made it to the office, let myself in, grabbed my notes, and was back in the parking lot, heading to my car, in no time flat.

  The parking lot had been empty when I’d arrived, as was expected at this time of night. But there was another car now parked next to mine. A small, inexpensive import. Red. It was vaguely familiar, but I had no idea why.

  When Gina got out of the driver’s side as I approached, I realized why the car had seemed familiar.

  “Hey, Gina,” I greeted her, smiling but feeling a little disoriented by her sudden appearance. “What are you doing here?”

  “I saw your car.”

  “Okay.” I frowned, walking over to the far side of my car so I could have a conversation with her, since she seemed to want one. “How is everything going?”

  “Why do you have someone investigating me?”

  I blinked. “What are you talking about?”

  “This afternoon. Someone started asking people about me. Why did you do it?” Gina had always been kind of weird and needy, but her expression was different now than usual. She looked tense, on edge, and there was something almost wild in her eyes, visible even in the dim light.

  There weren’t a lot of lights in the parking lot.

  “I didn’t do anything. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I kept my voice natural, but my heartbeat had started to pick up. There was no definite reason for feeling nervous. Just that Gina wasn’t acting like normal, and it was sending out weird vibes.

  “Don’t lie to me.” Her voice got a little louder, and she took a step closer to me. “You’ve always hated me.”

  I almost sputtered in surprise. “I’ve never hated you. Where is this coming from?”

  “You’ve always resented my relationship with Gavin. You’ve always hated me for taking him away from you.”

  I stared blindly, my heart racing now. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t reasonable. This wasn’t normal behavior. But it took me so by surprise that I could barely process it, much less think of a way to handle it.

  My first instinct was to say that Gina didn’t have it in her to take Gavin away from me, but fortunately I curbed that instinct before the words came out. “I’ve never resented you. I promise, Gina.” I started walking around my car, deciding that ending this weird conversation was the best option. “I’m kind of in a hurry tonight, but maybe we can get together later this week. Have lunch or something. And work this out.”

  I’d almost made it to my door when Gina was suddenly right in front of me. She stepped in toward me, trapping me against the car. “What are you planning?” she demanded, her voice almost shrill. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to. Trashing Gavin’s memory and making it all about you. Talking about him on the news as if he loved you more than me.”

  I gaped, unable to say anything through my astonishment.

  “I’m not going to let you trash him so you can spread your legs for his best friend!”

  Okay, the astonishment cleared enough for me to be terrified. This wasn’t the Gina I’d always know. This Gina was quite clearly unhinged. She’d always been a little obsessed with Gavin, and that obsession must have taken a new form after his death.

  All of this clicked in my mind in the three seconds it took me to figure out what I needed to do.

  I pushed her away and clicked my car unlocked. I had the door opened when she grabbed me and pulled me away from the car.

  She literally pulled me away. She’s about six inches taller than me and is no lightweight. I stumbled and managed to right myself, but then she grabbed my arm and twisted.

  I had just never been exposed to physical violence before, and the shock of it was almost as strong as the pain. But I reacted immediately, instinctively. I pulled back my free arm and levered it up in a sharp jab. It didn’t connect perfectly, kind of glancing off her jaw since she was moving, but it was enough.

  She made a huff of sound at the impact and loosened her hold on my arm.

  I pulled away immediately and kicked out with my right leg in a kickboxing move I’d practiced hundreds of time.

  It didn’t go exactly as I’d practiced. In fact, I pulled a muscle in my inner thigh so painfully my eyes blurred. But the blow sent her backward, falling onto the ground on her butt.

  I scrabbled toward the car, wanting only to get inside with the door closed and locked. I’d actually gotten my hand on the door when Gina screeched, “Stop!” from behind me.

  When someone screeches at you like that, you can’t help but look behind to see why.

  I glanced over my shoulder, still grappling with the door, and then I jerked to a halt.

  Gina had a gun, and she was aiming it directly at me.

  So I froze.

  Maybe, theoretically, I could have gotten into the seat, closed and locked the door, and driven away without getting shot. But a pointed gun will generally stop you from taking such risks.

  I stood completely still, my hand still clenched on the door, and I gazed at the muzzle.

  I don’t know anything about guns, so I have no idea what kind it was. I had to assume it was loaded, and that was all that mattered to me.

  “What do you want?” I asked breathlessly, trying to sort through the chaotic jumble in my head to figure out the best strategy for dealing with this.

  “I want Gavin back.” Her voice was cold and uncontrolled both. Somehow.

  “So do I,” I admitted. “So do I.”

  “He was mine. He wanted to be with me. And you always stood in the way.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” I sounded far more reasonable than I felt. My voice was hoarse but wasn’t panicky, the way I felt.

  “I mean—” She stopped abruptly when my phone rang from the pocket of my sweatshirt.

  I pulled out the phone automatically and saw it was Levi calling. I had no idea why he’d be calling me, but I desperately wanted him to be here right now.

  “Don’t answer it!” she exclaimed.

  “I’m not. I’m just silencing it.” I didn’t silence the phone. I connected the call and slid it back in my pocket. Then I said, a little more loudly, “I think we could talk about this better if you’d put away the gun. We can go upstairs to my office if you want to talk somewhere other than this parking lot.”

  I felt strangely better, knowing Levi might be able to hear what I said.

  “I’m not stupid,” Gina said. “You can’t trick me. Gavin never saw the truth about you.”

  “What truth?”

  “That you didn’t want him to be happy. That you wanted to keep him away from me.”

  “How did I ever keep you away from him?” I tried to stay calm, since I knew I needed to stall as long as possible, but I hurt all over and my heart was pounding so violently I was afraid it would crack my chest.

  “I know what you did. I would ask him to hang out with me, and he’d always say he was doing something with you. He had almost no time at home as it was, and then you kept him all to yourself, when you knew I was the only woman he loved.”

  There was no arguing with irrationality like this, so I just said whatever I could to keep her happy. “I know he loved you. He talked about you all the time.”

  Her eyes widened. “He did?” She sounded so young, so needy.

  “Yes. He did. He loved you more than anything. You were always the first in his heart.”

  She sniffed and wiped at her eye with one hand, but the other never wavered with the gun. “I knew it. I knew it. He pretended….but I knew it.”

  “He loved you. And I know he’d want you to have his journal. He kept all of his private thoughts about you in it. Do you want it?
”

  If Levi had heard the first things I’d said, then surely he’d be on his way over here now. He hadn’t been more than a few minutes away when I’d seen him earlier.

  Damned obstinate man. Hovering whenever I didn’t want him there and then absent when I really needed him.

  Typical Levi.

  “A journal?” She sniffed again and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.

  “Yeah. It’s at the house. We can head over there, and I can give it to you.”

  She looked like she might be wavering, and I started to get hopeful.

  Maybe too hopeful. “If you can just put away the gun, then I can—”

  “No,” she interrupted sharply. “I know you’re always trying to trick me.”

  “I’ve never tried—”

  “You have too! Now get into my car.”

  I looked over at her little red car, and I knew I was never going to get in. If I did, I would never get out. I knew it. “Let’s take my car,” I said, mostly just stalling and trying to think of something to do. “It will be better—”

  “No! Get into my car right now!”

  “Where are we going?”

  “None of your business. Just do what I say.”

  I walked slowly around my car towards hers. She was right behind me, the gun still pointed.

  I knew one thing for sure. There was no way in hell I was going to get into her car.

  And Levi wasn’t going to come.

  So I did the only thing left to do. I swung around without warning, using my bag as a weapon. I clobbered her with it, knocking her gun hand down in the process.

  She screamed in fury, and I raced back for my car.

  I was on the far side when I heard the shot. I threw myself on the pavement just as I heard a second gunshot. My hands and knees burned from being all scraped up, but I didn’t think I’d been hit, since nothing hurt enough for that.

  I panted on the ground, momentarily hidden by the car. But she was just on the other side, and she’d obviously gotten control of her gun again.

  I’d jumped to my feet, thinking vaguely about tackling her when I heard a different sound.

  A car.

  Tires squealed as a pickup barreled into the parking lot, and I looked over just as it lurched to a stop just a few feet away.

  It was like a miracle. Levi was there—looking urgent and angry and determined and sexy and tired somehow.

  He swung his door open and jumped out, before the vehicle seemed to have fully stopped. Then he was on Gina, grabbing her gun, holding her arms so he was completely in control of her.

  She might be a lot bigger than me, but he was bigger than her.

  And he’d come when I needed him after all.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded, holding Gina easily as she swore at him fiercely and struggled. “Harper, talk to me. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” My throat was raw, and there was blood on my hands and knees from the fall, and I felt like my knees would buckle where I stood. Plus, the ankle I’d twisted last week was still kind of hurting.

  And Gina was mentally unbalanced, but no one had known it until tonight.

  “Shut up,” he bit out—to Gina. Then his dark eyes raked over me, searching for damage. “Harper, are you really okay?”

  I supported myself on the side of the car, since I really didn’t think I could stay standing. “We should call the police.”

  “I already did, on my way over. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “Okay.”

  Gina was fighting him now so wildly that he was having to struggle to keep hold of her without physically harming her. “Be still,” he demanded, in an authoritative voice that brooked no argument.

  She went limp and started to cry.

  I sighed, deciding that now—finally—it was really over.

  It was mostly over, but the aftermath took a really long time. The police did come, including Randy, who kept saying I’d done a great job handling it. They asked me a bunch of questions, and then an ambulance came, although there was absolutely no reason for one. They patched me up and said I’d be fine.

  I didn’t feel fine. I wanted to just go home and forget this whole mess had ever happened, but I wasn’t allowed to go home yet.

  Levi and I had to go the police station to file reports and answer more questions.

  So it was more than an hour later when I was sitting in the station beside Levi. I was so exhausted by this time that I was limp, and I didn’t pull away when he put his arm around me.

  It didn’t feel intimate or affectionate. It felt strong and supportive, and that was what I needed.

  We hadn’t said anything to each other. Not really. Not since the police had arrived.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said after a while, since I really did appreciate it and felt like it needed to be said.

  “What else would I do?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “I was calling because I’d gotten a PI to look into Gina and he uncovered all kinds of shit. I was trying to warn you.” He gave a bitter huff. “Not quite soon enough.”

  “Better late than never. I had no idea she was so on the edge mentally.”

  “I think it was only recently that she crossed the line. She was the one doing the death threats, you know.”

  “Yeah.” I relaxed against him, his body warm and hard and him.

  He didn’t say anything else, so I assumed the conversation was over. It was fine. This was as close as we were ever going to get.

  Then he asked without warning, “So what did you find out in DC?”

  “What makes you think I found out anything?”

  “Just a guess.”

  “I found out a few things.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. I’m not doing anything with it.”

  I thought my response must have surprised him because I felt his body tighten briefly. “Why?”

  “Do I owe you an answer to that question?”

  “Maybe not. But I want to know anyway.”

  I considered that for a while and decided there was no reason not to tell him. “No good would come from bringing this out. To me or anyone else. I don’t want to do something…something big like that for no other reason than trying to resurrect a corpse. I just don’t want to do that.”

  I heard him release a long breath. “Yeah.”

  And that was it. We didn’t say anything else.

  ***

  Two weeks later, things should have felt normal again. Gina had been arrested and was getting professional help. I was back at work and looking for another cause that needed my attention, something I could commit to that would genuinely accomplish good in the world. And the scratches on my hands and knees were mostly healed, as was the pulled muscle in my leg and my twisted ankle.

  And I missed Levi. More than I could have imagined.

  I hadn’t talked to him since that night. If he’d called me, I’m sure I wouldn’t have hung up on him, but he didn’t call. He knew as well as I did that we had no future—not between us.

  He lived a life he could perfectly control, never letting himself be vulnerable or open, never trusting someone with his heart. Even his apartment testified to this. Stark and barren and impersonal.

  And I lived a life that refused to be controlled.

  Those two lives could never come together.

  So the fact that I was still thinking about him, worrying about him, wanting him—both emotionally and physically—was ludicrous.

  But there it was. And I couldn’t talk myself out of it.

  I was walking out of the coffee shop with a coffee for me and a chai latte for Jack when I nearly collided with Levi on the sidewalk.

  He obviously wasn’t working on the project site nearby. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, but he didn’t appear to have been doing manual labor.

  He was walking a dog. A smallish terrier.

  I was so astonished I stared down at t
he dog.

  When my eyes lifted at last, I saw him giving me a searching, almost questioning look.

  “Whose dog is that?” I blurted out, without even a greeting.

  “Mine.” He made a motion with his hand, and the dog moved closer to his heel.

  “You got a dog?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “He was a stray.”

  That didn’t answer the question. I couldn’t believe he would have adopted a dog. It didn’t seem Levi-like at all, and I had no idea what would explain the change. “Oh,” I finally said.

  His searching eyes and familiar face were too troubling, too confusing. I lowered my eyes and mumbled, “I better get going. I’ll see you around.”

  So I moved on physically, walking away from him. But I definitely didn’t move on mentally. I kept thinking about him, wondering why he’d decided to commit to a dog, wondering why he’d made such a change.

  Maybe he was settling into his life here. But that didn’t mean anything had changed about his feelings for me or the possibility of our ever being together.

  So there was no reason—absolutely no reason—for my heart to flutter like it was.

  Damned heart. Always fluttering when there was no call for it.

  Twelve

  Levi

  Spike tilted his head and looked at me like I was crazy. I was beginning to think I was. Sitting out on the front steps of my apartment building, I waited for the furniture delivery. I had slept all of three hours in the last three days as I put all of my energy into getting the place painted before the furniture arrived.

  It was time.

  It was something that Harper had said over a month ago, and she had been right. I wasn’t really living. I wasn’t really getting involved. I was alive, but I was simply going through the motions.

  Not anymore.

  This may not have been the life that I’d imagined for myself, but this was the life that I was given and, unlike Gavin, I had the opportunity to actually live it. To have a future. I’d be the world’s biggest jackass to let it all pass me by while I hid myself away and pouted because things didn’t go like I’d planned.

  I heard the truck approaching and stood up. My clothes were covered in paint, and when I looked down at Spike, I noticed more than one spot of blue on him. “Sorry, Bud,” I told him with a shrug as I jogged down the steps to meet the truck.