Pawn

by Carla Cassidy

  A cool breeze came off the water and she welcomed the feel on her bare arms. One of Lynn's genetic gifts—or curses, as it were—was that even her sense of touch was more sensitive than normal. She felt physical contact more intensely than other people did.

  Like her acute sense of hearing, she had learned to shut off her intense sensory perception in order to survive daily life.

  Thankfully the church was in the opposite direction of the tavern where despite the early-evening hour things were beginning to hop.

  The address on the flyer turned out to be a small storefront on which the words Christian Ministry had been spray-painted in bold black block letters across a picture window.

  She opened the door and stepped inside. The room contained folding chairs set up theater style and a raised pulpit at the front of the room.

  Three people were seated on the chairs, an old man who smiled wearily at her, a young man who appeared to be between the ages of thirteen and fifteen and a young woman who sported a swollen split lip.

  She slid into a chair at the back of the room just as Reverend Tiny walked in from a doorway near the pulpit. Again she was struck by the bulk of the man. He looked better suited to a wrestling ring than a church.

  His nose looked as if it had been broken more than once and his bulging biceps and tree-trunk size thighs probably kept anyone from screwing with him. Tonight he was clad in a lightweight tan suit and a white shirt and looked almost presentable.

  "I see we're a small group tonight," he said after nodding to each of the attendees. "But, Jesus never cared how big or small the crowd he spoke with was and neither do I."

  It had been a long time since Lynn had listened to a sermon. Jonas had never been a churchgoer and so Lynn's spiritual education had been sadly lacking when she'd been growing up.

  It wasn't until she was in college that she'd started attending church on a regular basis and had found the church community a welcoming place.

  She listened to Tiny as he spoke of forgiveness and salvation. It had taken her the better part of a year to find forgiveness in her heart for Jonas and the men and women from Lab 33 who had played God with her life.

  But with the help of her sisters and the Cassandras, she'd realized that holding on to the kind of anger she'd felt was counterproductive and would only eventually destroy her.

  When Tiny was finished with his sermon, he indicated that cookies and coffee would be served for those who wanted to stick around.

  Reluctant to hurry back to her apartment, Lynn stayed and helped herself to a cookie and a cup of coffee from the table to the right of the pulpit.

  "I see you decided to join us tonight." Tiny smiled at her as he picked up a cookie. He turned to the only one who had remained behind besides Lynn, the old man. "This is Joseph. Joseph, Lynn. She's new to the neighborhood."

  Joseph smiled at Lynn. "You look like a nice girl. My advice to you would be to get out of this neighborhood as soon as you can."

  "That's my plan," Lynn said. She couldn't wait to get back to her life in Phoenix. "Is the crowd always this small?"

  "It varies," Tiny said. "We usually have our biggest crowd on Monday nights, when people are looking to atone for their weekend sins."

  "Wednesday nights are always slow," Joseph said. "Folks have already forgotten about last weekend's sins and they haven't committed next weekend's sins yet." He looked at Tiny. "I'll go ahead and start putting away the cookies."

  "How long have you been doing this?" Lynn asked Tiny as Joseph began to pack the cookies away in a plastic container.

  "Two years. I grew up in this neighborhood. Worked the docks, drank too much, drugged too much and wound up killing a man in that tavern on the corner."

  He grimaced, as if the memory pained him. "He was a local thug and so was I. He mouthed off, threw a punch and I broke a bottle over his head. Killed him. I spent ten years in prison and had lots of time to decide where I wanted to go with my life when I got out. Decided to come back here and try to make a difference."

  "Are you?"

  He shrugged his massive shoulders. "Did you see that boy who was here? His name is Jessie. His father is a drunk and his mama is a crack whore. Statistics say he's a lost soul, that he'll probably wind up in a gang, in prison or dead before he's eighteen. But, every night, instead of running the streets, he comes here. He eats dinner with me, listens to me lecture him, then he goes home and studies. I like to think I'm making a difference." He crooked a dark eyebrow. "What about you? Are you a lost soul?"

  "No, just temporarily displaced." Lynn offered him a tentative smile. "Well, thanks for the sermon and the cookie."

  "You're welcome here any night of the week. You have any problems, you come see me. I take care of my flock."

  Chapter 8

  "I brought you more presents," Nick said when he arrived at the apartment at eleven-thirty the next evening. He looked fine in a pair of worn jeans and a black T-shirt that exposed muscled biceps and forearms. He carried with him a plastic bag. He set the bag on the table then gestured for her to join him at the table.

  "Oh goody, you know how much I love presents. So, what did you bring?" She sat and looked at him expectantly.

  "First of all I have the latest photo of the containers that were unloaded today." He pulled the photo out of the plastic grocery bag.

  She studied the photo for a minute, noting the location of the newest containers. "How do you get these?" she asked curiously.

  "They're in my car each night when I get in to drive here. I have no idea who delivers them, they're just there. And now, I have another surprise for you." He reached into the plastic bag and removed a smaller bag containing two thick slabs of meat. "A couple of nice Kansas City strip steaks."

  "You brought me steaks?" She raised an eyebrow. "Does this mean you're planning on cooking for me?"

  He smiled, that lazy upturn of the corners of his lips that always shot a tiny thrill through her. "I can either cook them for you while you're gone or you can take them with you and give them to the hounds from hell."

  "Ah, you sure know the way to a girl's heart."

  "Speaking of hearts, who's Leo?"

  The swift change of subject caused her to sit back in her chair and blink in surprise. "Leo? He lives in the apartment next door to me, in Phoenix. Why? How do you know him?"

  "I don't. But when I showed up at your apartment door the other day you said something about not sleeping with him." Although his expression remained placid, that telltale muscle tightened in his jaw.

  She thought about teasing him, giving him the impression that she'd been sleeping with Leo, but she wasn't the kind of woman to play those kinds of games. "Leo's a very nice man who has indicated he'd like to have a relationship with me."

  "And would you like that?" The jaw muscle ticked faster.

  "If I wanted that, then I wouldn't have been yelling through the door that I wasn't going to sleep with him," she said. "Leo is good-looking and wonderfully uncomplicated, but he doesn't make my heart beat faster and he doesn't make my breath catch in my chest."

  She got up from the table and walked to the window, where she peered out into the darkness of the night. She could die tonight. She'd be a fool not to recognize the possibility of her own demise, especially under the circumstances.

  She turned back to face Nick. In the brief time they'd spent together she'd felt the awkwardness of a past unfinished and it was suddenly important to her that she tell him how she felt about seeing him again.

  "Nick, I want you to know something." She returned to the table and sat across from him. "There have been many nights in the past year that I've been filled with regret, that I wished somehow that I hadn't left Miami, that I hadn't left you."

  His features twisted into a semblance of pain. "Lynn, we can't change the past. You needed to go. If you remember, I encouraged you to go. I knew you needed to find out things that I couldn't find out for you." His warm gaze caressed her features. "It wouldn't have wo
rked if you'd stayed. Your questions would have eaten you alive and you would have come to resent me."

  She sighed. "You're probably right." She looked at her watch then touched the back of his hand. His skin burned warm beneath her fingertips. His gaze darkened at her touch and sparked with something she recognized as desire.

  He pulled his hand away from hers. "It's time for you to go."

  "I know." Reluctantly she stood once again and picked up the bag of steaks. Always when the conversation got too personal, he jumped into business mode. "Hopefully I'll see you back here around three."

  "Be careful."

  "Always." She walked to the door and opened it, then turned back to look at him. "There's just one more thing I want you to know in case anything happens to me. I never stopped wanting you, Nick." She didn't wait for him to answer, but instead turned and left the apartment.

  Minutes later she hit the street and broke into a run, wondering what affect, if any, her words had had on him. She'd thought she'd known him better than anyone on the face of the earth a year ago. But she couldn't get a handle on the man he was now.

  He'd told her he was working another assignment and she respected that he couldn't talk to her about that. Just as she couldn't mention working on the Spider files to him. But, she had the crazy feeling that his secrecy went beyond whatever assignment he was working.

  He wasn't giving up anything of himself, except during those moments when she was certain she felt desire for her wafting from him.

  With conscious effort she dismissed thoughts of Nick from her mind, knowing it would be a mistake to work the yard while distracted.

  She went over the wall of the holding area in the same place she had the night before. She hit the ground and froze, listening to her surroundings.

  Thankfully there was no pitter-patter of any four-legged creatures, nor was there any sound to indicate any human presence.

  She got to work.

  Ten containers had been unloaded that day and she had the two containers remaining from the night before. She went to those two first.

  By the time she was on her third container of the night she felt herself falling into a rhythm. Get in, run the scanner and get out. Get in, run the scanner and get out. And after clearing each one, she whispered the number of the container aloud so that Nick could check her progress and keep track of the cleared items.

  As she moved from spot to spot in the enclosure, she sometimes heard the voices of guards nearby, but they never got close enough to even make her heart beat faster.

  By two o'clock she'd finished her night's work without encountering either the guards or drawing the attention of the dogs. She left the yard and headed back toward her apartment.

  "Mission accomplished," she said into her transmitter. "I'm on my way back."

  She'd moved unusually fast while conducting her search and so she walked down the quiet, dark sidewalk at a slower pace in order to catch her breath.

  As she walked past the buildings she heard a variety of sounds. Air conditioners hummed, cooling the air inside the dreary places. The sound of a woman laughing drifted from an opened window. A dog barked someplace in the distance. Normal sounds that helped dispel the adrenaline that had hyped her up while she'd worked.

  A baby cried from one of the buildings that looked abandoned and she heard the shushing tones of an older woman. Hell of a place to raise a baby, she thought.

  The night was warm and more humid than usual. The air wrapped around her with a closeness that made her feel slightly claustrophobic. The weatherman had forecast storms later in the week. During her years of living in Miami, she'd survived too many hurricanes not to take storms quite seriously.

  Her apartment building came into sight and she saw the light in her window spilling out into the night. She'd managed to get through the night unscathed and that light represented safety and Nick.

  Nick. Damn the man anyway. Every time she looked at him she remembered how good he'd been as a lover and she wanted him again. If nothing else came from their time working together, she was determined to make love to him once more, to see if her memories were as good as reality or had simply been magnified in the time that had gone by.

  "New girl on the block needs to understand who owns these streets."

  The venomous voice came from behind Lynn, startling her. She whirled around and caught a glimpse of the hooker she'd seen the first night she'd arrived before a fist slammed into her face.

  Pain exploded under her right eye and she reeled backward with the force of the blow. She would have fallen if not for a trash can she crashed into with a bang.

  She grabbed the can and steadied herself as the woman came at her again with fists raised to strike. Tonight the hooker was dressed in a short red sequined dress, but it was obvious she didn't have loving on her mind.

  "What is your problem?" Lynn exclaimed to the woman whose features were twisted in a mask of cold rage. Jesus, she could feel a trickle of blood running down her cheek. She swiped at it with the back of one hand.

  "You're my problem. You're out here prancing your ass in those tight little pants and you gotta know these streets are mine and Stella don't share." She swung wildly at Lynn, who easily sidestepped the blow.

  "Look, lady, don't make me hurt you," Lynn warned. As mean and crazy as Stella appeared with her dark eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into a grimace of malevolence, Lynn knew with a well-placed kick she could seriously harm the woman.

  "A little-ass girl like you think you're going to hurt me?" Stella laughed. "I'm going to bust you up, bitch, just so you understand the way things are." With a roar of rage, Stella charged her, arms swinging and fists clenched.

  Lynn didn't shy away, knowing that unless she intended to tangle with Stella every night while she was in this place she needed to take care of the situation now.

  Unlike the Doberman whose gaze she'd avoided, she stared Stella in her wild eyes, aware that she was encouraging a confrontation rather than avoiding one. It was the only way to resolve the issue.

  She managed to dodge a right cross, then grabbed one of Stella's wrists and held on tight. Stella tried to hit her with the other hand, but Lynn evaded the blows.

  She squeezed Stella's wrist painfully tight and the woman yelped in pain, her knees buckling and hitting the sidewalk. "Listen to me," Lynn said through clenched teeth. "You don't know who you're messing with."

  "Let me go. You're gonna break my wrist," Stella moaned and tried to twist away.

  "I'm not letting you go until you understand that I'm not working the streets, I'm not cutting into your business. I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone. Got it?"

  Stella nodded vigorously, her large breasts heaving beneath the red sequined top. "Okay…okay. It's all good. Just stop hurting me."

  Lynn let go of her wrist. Stella collapsed onto the pavement for a moment, then jumped up and faced her, a wicked-looking knife appearing in her hand. "You're dead, girlfriend."

  A cold wave swept over Lynn as Stella rushed her. Praying her aim would be good, Lynn delivered a right-legged kick that connected with Stella's hand. The knife flew from her grasp and clattered to the street out of reach.

  Stella gasped just before a roundhouse kick hit her on the side of the head. She fell to the pavement like a sack of rocks.

  Lynn hurried to her side, relieved to see she was alive and still conscious, although obviously dazed. She leaned down and stared the woman in the eyes. "Like I said before, you leave me alone and I'll leave you alone, got it?"

  Stella made a faint nod, all trace of anger gone from her features. As she sat up and rubbed the side of her head where Lynn had kicked her, Lynn took off down the sidewalk.

  She stopped in the street and picked up the knife, then continued on her way. As she crossed the street to get to her apartment building she glanced back and saw no sign of Stella.

  Nick greeted her at her apartment door. "You're bleeding." He took her by the arm and led her to th
e sofa, then went to the sink and wet a dish towel.

  "I'm fine." She dropped the knife on the coffee table, then reached to touch her upper cheek. "She must have been wearing a ring when she hit me. And by the way, thanks for your help."

  "Actually, I was just about to head out the door to help you when I heard you take her down," he replied.

  He sat on the sofa next to her and wiped at the wound. She closed her eyes, allowing him to gently clean her cheek. "They warned me about dogs and guards and bombs, but nobody said anything about crazy, territorial hookers," she said dryly.

  She opened her eyes to see him smile. "Ah, she was just jealous because you look better in tight pants." He dabbed at her cheek again. "I think you could use some ice on this." He got up and went to the refrigerator.

  When he returned to the sofa he had an ice cube wrapped in a dish towel. He pressed it to her cheek, his gaze soft as it lingered on her. "How did she manage to sneak up on you?"

  Lynn sighed in frustration. "I don't know. I guess I was distracted." She couldn't very well tell him that she'd been thinking about him, that she'd been contemplating making love with him again.

  She frowned. "It was stupid of me. It was my fault for shutting down before I was back here safe and sound." Even now it was difficult to think of anything but Nick's nearness to her. "I completely tuned out. It was a stupid mistake."

  He sat so close to her, his thigh pressed against hers, and the heat of that contact made her heart race. As he pressed the icy cloth against her cheek, she covered his hand with hers.

  "Talk to me, Nick," she said and sighed wearily. "We haven't really talked." She pulled his hand from her cheek.

  "What do you want to talk about?" He got up and put the ice and cloth into the sink, then returned to the sofa next to her.

  "I don't know. Talk to me about what your life has been like the last year. Tell me how your family is doing, if you still go to that seafood place on the beach. Just talk to me about anything other than pissed-off hookers and shipping containers and mad dogs."