Take a Risk (Risk #1)

by Scarlett Finn

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Suzette spent the night in her bed with her, but they didn’t wake up to Colt or to Ruger watching over them today. The friends and Archie had breakfast together and spent the longest time talking about absolutely nothing. It was amazing how skilled they were at small talk, with all of them avoiding the elephant in the room, which was that actually none of them wanted to be in each other’s company at all. There was somewhere that they would all rather be: with their respective partners.

  Going through the motions of the day, they were all preoccupied. Archie attempted to call the receptionist who had thrown him out but she was refusing to take his calls. Lyssa tried to call Colt, but it went to voicemail. He had to be busy and she knew he was pulling out all of the stops to ensure that she was kept safe, but she longed to hear his voice.

  Suzette tried to call Pete too, though Lyssa tried to tell her to give him more time, but his phone was diverting to voicemail as well.

  ‘It must mean he’s over me,’ Suzette wailed and Archie tutted and turned up the volume on the television. The man had never had any patience for Suzette, but he rarely had patience for anyone.

  For a man with a successful business he didn’t have very many ends to tie up or explanations to make. But he had a staff to take care of all of that for him, all he had to do was show up for surgery and there was none of that going on this weekend. She wondered if he’d clued his staff into the fact that there may be no wages for them at the end of the month, probably not.

  ‘It doesn’t mean that he’s over you,’ Lyssa said. The women sat together drinking coffee in the kitchen, where they’d been contemplating making lunch, but had yet to work up the required motivation. ‘It could mean anything. Maybe he’s busy or got called into work. There’s a chance that he’s just as devastated as you and is at home right now pining.’

  ‘Do you think that I should go over there?’

  ‘You don’t want to pressure him,’ Lyssa said. ‘Remember that you have genuine grievances too, you should be able to air those with him and come to a compromise. This relationship can’t only be about him, it has to be about both of you.’

  ‘Can you counsel us?’ Suzette asked. ‘Maybe if you’re there to play mediator... he’ll see reason, you know? He’ll see how good you are at what you do and how special you are, and he won’t feel the need to… push you out, or protect me from you.’

  Lyssa nudged her coffee mug out of the way so that she could reach to take Suzette’s hand without barriers. ‘You know that I will always be available to you as a friend. But Pete isn’t comfortable with me and it would be unfair to put him in a room with both of us. A patient has to be able to trust their doctor and he’s going to think that I am biased.’

  ‘But you’re not! You’re always fair.’

  ‘I would be biased,’ Lyssa smiled. ‘I appreciate your compliment, but I know about things in your relationship that he doesn’t know I know. You’re also my oldest and dearest friend, how could I look at your relationship without a skewed view? If it came to the crunch in any situation, can you see yourself siding with Colt over me?’

  ‘No,’ Suzette sighed and dropped an elbow to the table top. ‘But I can’t not get married Lys, I can’t believe how quickly this fell apart. Everything is planned, it’s all booked and paid for. I thought I’d be walking down the aisle toward him, and now…’

  ‘He doesn’t want you spending time with me while he feels that I provide an unsafe environment for you, that’s reasonable. Colt is working right now to remove the threat and once he does then Pete will have no reason to prevent us from being friends and spending time in each other’s company. Maybe once that happens he’ll begin to see just how special you are to me, and he’ll learn that I would never knowingly endanger you.’

  ‘What if Colt is unsuccessful in removing the threat?’

  If Colt was unsuccessful then Lyssa was going to have all kinds of problems, the least of which would be her best friend’s fiancé, or former fiancé, depending on what he was by then. ‘He’ll be successful, these things just take time.’

  ‘How can you be so optimistic? You’re always so optimistic,’ Suzette whined. Misery did love company and right now Lyssa wasn’t providing that company for her.

  ‘I’m not going to let this person have that kind of power over me,’ Lyssa said. ‘I have more faith in Colt than I do in the stalker and if one of them is going to triumph, then it’s going to be my Colt.’

  ‘So once the stalker is caught and put in jail, do you think that Pete will forget everything else that happened? About Risqué, and me going there even though I knew he wouldn’t be happy with me doing it?’

  ‘The lying is harder to get over,’ Lyssa said, having to be honest with her friend. ‘But I do believe that it was the shock of what happened with the police raid that Pete reacted to. Did you tell him that you’d been out with your sister?’

  ‘Yes, but he didn’t believe me.’

  ‘So you ended up telling him the truth?’

  ‘Yes, and that’s when he exploded,’ Suzette said.

  ‘Like I said, it was a shocking story and we already know how concerned he is for your safety. Imagine hearing such a story from him, knowing that the person you love has been in danger while you weren’t there for them.’

  ‘Do you really think that this is about that?’ Suzette asked, completely unconvinced. ‘He knew that I wasn’t in any danger, not real danger. I mean it was the cops, right? They wouldn’t have done anything to harm me.’

  ‘Yes, but you went to a place that could have put you in danger. We might know that Risqué is a safe place, but all that Pete knows is that you visited a strip club in a seedy part of town, alone. If he doesn’t frequent these places then it made sense that his mind went to the worst case scenario. Before I knew Colt and Risqué, I would have assumed it was a dangerous place. In fact I did assume that, I took you that first night because I wasn’t sure that it was safe to go there alone. It’s only my experience of the place, and the people there, that has taught me otherwise.’

  Suzette perked up, coddling her cup in both hands and sliding it toward her chest. ‘So maybe if I take Pete there and introduce him to some of the people he will learn that—‘

  ‘I don’t think that Pete will be open to visiting the club, not right off the bat. Maybe in time you can build up to taking him there and introducing him to the people that we know. Fundamentally, this is about trust. He feels betrayed. You put yourself in danger to help me when he asked you to take no part in the situation.’

  ‘But I wasn’t in danger!’ Suzette asserted. ‘We went to that place together, it was recommended by a cop for goodness sake and nothing bad happened to me when we went together before.’

  ‘No, but it was a risk. Pete probably realises now just how important this friendship is to you and how far you are willing to go to help me.’

  ‘That’s a bad thing? That I’m loyal to my friends and willing to support them?’

  ‘No,’ Lyssa smiled. ‘But you didn’t go to Pete and ask him to help you. You went behind his back to seek out another man.’

  ‘Who happens to have experience in this area.’

  ‘You could have explained your worries to Pete and asked him to accompany you to Risque,’ Lyssa said. ‘Did you consider that?’

  ‘No. We both know how he would have reacted. He’d already banned me from seeing you, so he was never going to help me to help you. If I had asked him and he had said no then I would have had to go alone anyway, without his support. Isn’t it worse to do something you’ve already been forbidden from doing than to just do it without asking?’

  ‘If you think that arguing your way out of this on a technicality is going to be successful then you’re mistaken. Pete needs to know that you trust him and value him. He wants to see you put your relationship with him before everything else. As far as he’s concerned you’re going to get married and spend your lives growing old together. You ar
e the mother of his future children.’

  ‘And that’s all great,’ Suzette said. ‘I feel the same way.’

  ‘His dream is to be with you, but how long will that dream last if you get yourself hurt, or worse, because of me?’

  ‘This is so messed up. I want to be with him. But I have to be myself too, and I have to be allowed to have friendships. I don’t forbid him from spending time with his friends and colleagues.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a friendship like this though, does he?’

  ‘Keith is the closest thing that he has to a best friend. I’ve never known him to associate with anyone else to be honest, even at work.’

  Lyssa couldn’t judge Pete for that, she worked alone and so most of her contact was with patients. Colleagues that made referrals sent emails; she rarely even spoke to them on the phone. Suzette was her best friend, and all that Lyssa felt she needed.

  ‘Would he do what you did?’ Lyssa asked. ‘Would Pete take a possibly grave risk to ensure Keith’s safety?’

  ‘I’m not even sure that he’d take that kind of risk to ensure mine.’

  Seeing her best friend depressed upset Lyssa, but the more they discussed the relationship, the more her concern shifted to something else. ‘If you’re not sure of that then you shouldn’t be marrying him.’ Usually she wasn’t so blunt, but they weren’t in her doctor’s office now.

  Suzette must have realised the same thing about her being heavy handed, for the longest time she said nothing at all, but eventually she looked up. ‘I know that our relationship is not perfect. And I know that Pete has flaws, just like I do, but… I love him.’

  How many times she’d heard the same thing. Lyssa had made it a point to take on mostly male patients because they tended to be more direct and not so caught up in the messy mire of emotions, because emotions were the one thing that couldn’t be reasoned away. Men were engaged enough to take on practical advice. But in the majority of cases women acted with their hearts and not their heads. That very line, “I love him” seemed to be an answer and explanation for everything. Lyssa didn’t fault the women, she was one herself and had been bogged down by the heavy heart that told her how wrong her partner’s actions were, but still couldn’t bring herself to reject them.

  She and Archie had such fun and such a deep connection when they met that falling in love with him had been inevitable. Their relationship had cooled quickly and the connection ended up being mostly sexual, which her naïve mind and body had made into something else. They should have split up long before they did, but Lyssa had told herself the same thing, that she loved Archie and that it would all work out. For a while she had believed that things would go back to the way they were, in time, and that all they had to do was find each other again. How wrong she had been.

  If Suzette loved Pete and the depth of feeling was returned then the couple should fight to be together. But if this was just obligation because the church was already booked, Lyssa had to stop her friend from making such a permanent mistake. Marriages may be able to end, but divorce stayed with a person for life and Suzette was so full of life and energy that Lyssa would hate to see her become jaded or bitter.

  Readying herself to ask some difficult questions, Lyssa was interrupted by the drone of the doorbell, which few people ever used. Both women sat straighter and there was hope in both of them that their partner’s had come to call.

  Leaving Archie in front of the television, the women went down the stairs to answer the door without either saying a word. When they pulled open the door, Lyssa tried her best not to display her disappointment, almost as much as Suzette tried to disguise her elation.

  ‘Pete,’ Suzette said with a twitching grin.

  ‘I thought that you would be here,’ Pete said, glancing at Lyssa. ‘I think that we should talk.’

  Suzette was nodding furiously, and shoved Lyssa out of the way to grant Pete entry. ‘Come in. We can talk upstairs.’

  Pete passed the women and headed up the stairs, Suzette was close behind him until Lyssa caught her arm to hold her back. ‘Be careful,’ Lyssa said. ‘Try to be calm.’

  ‘He came here, for me,’ Suzette hissed, letting her grin loose. ‘That must mean he loves me.’

  ‘He didn’t say that he was here for you, he said he was here to talk.’

  The grin vanished and her complexion greyed. ‘Do you think he’s here to talk about cancelling the wedding?’

  ‘I don’t know why he’s here,’ Lyssa said, hating that she had to be the bearer of bad news. ‘I’m just telling you not to get your hopes up. Archie and I will leave—‘

  A sharp crack from upstairs startled the women, and after a moment agape, they ran up the stairs to see what had been the cause of such an abrupt bang. At first there was nothing to see. Pete wasn’t anywhere around and although the television was still on, she couldn’t see Archie either.

  Her assumption that her ex had gone into the bedroom was short-lived because as soon as she came around the couch she saw him slumped forward on the floor with a hole in the back of his skull.

  ‘Oh my god,’ she said, running around the couch and pulling him onto his back to assess what had happened. But the hole in the front of his forehead was larger and she recognised it immediately as an exit wound. ‘He’s been shot.’

  Suzette stood at the back of the couch, deathly white and visibly shaking. ‘How did…? I don’t understand how…?’

  Although she knew it was futile Lyssa checked Archie’s airway and tried to find a pulse, but there was none, and his pupils were fixed. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Which was exactly the point.’

  Both women turned toward the kitchen, and Lyssa struggled to get back onto her feet. Pete was there in the doorway, with a gun hanging loose in his hand. ‘What are you doing?’ Suzette asked. ‘Are you…? Did you…?’

  ‘It’s long overdue,’ Pete said, looking only at Lyssa. ‘Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘The death of my ex-husband. Why would I want Archie dead?’

  ‘He hurt you. Isn’t that what you tell your patients? To get rid of anyone who hurts you?’ Pete asked.

  ‘What I tell my patients?’ Lyssa said, examining the scene everything slotted into place and with wide eyes fixed on Pete she gasped. ‘It’s you.’

  ‘I’m at three and Warner hasn’t managed one,’ Pete said with a smile on his face that was completely out of place in this scenario. ‘You should pick your men more carefully. Find one that is willing to go to any lengths for you.’

  ‘What is going on?’ Suzette asked. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening.’

  ‘It’s him,’ Lyssa said. ‘He’s the one… the nut, the crazy, the stalker!’

  Still Suzette didn’t seem to understand, but there was no time to make further explanations because Pete came toward Suzette. Crowding in behind her, he pulled something from his back pocket and snapped it around her wrists, Lyssa recognised the sound of handcuffs, having had them clamped onto her own wrists not so long ago.

  ‘What are you going to do here?’ Lyssa asked. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Suzette must have got it now because she gasped and began to struggle. Pete tied a rag around her head, gagging her and imprisoning the scream that was desperate to come out. ‘You and I have things to discuss, doctor,’ Pete said, shoving Suzette over the couch, sending her rolling forward onto Archie’s body. Suzette let out a grumbled scream and tried to scramble away, but Pete came around and got hold of her cuffs again.

  ‘Don’t you hurt her,’ Lyssa said.

  ‘She won’t be hurt,’ Pete said, pulling Suzette to her feet, he caressed her face. ‘My future wife and I discussed spicing things up in the bedroom, maybe now is the time to explore that.’ Bringing the gun to Suzette’s forehead, he glared at Lyssa. ‘Walk.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Your bedroom, we’re all going in there together.’

  The bedroom wasn’t the most sensible choice for a conversation, so she had to wo
nder at his ulterior motive. ‘Ok,’ Lyssa said. ‘We’ll go through there together and talk.’

  ‘I’m the one who gives the orders and makes the plans!’ he said, shoving Suzette forward so that he could get closer to Lyssa, kicking Archie’s body in the process.

  ‘Yes,’ Lyssa nodded. ‘You are the one in control.’

  ‘Good,’ Pete sneered. ‘I’m glad you understand that. Now move!’

  With no other option Lyssa did what he asked. Suzette was crying, despite the gag she was managing to blubber, but Lyssa wanted to keep her wits about her and wasn’t ready to lose hope yet.

  When they got to the bedroom, she paused at the end of the bed. Pete moved past her to tie Suzette to the bedpost, while all Lyssa could do was watch. When he was done and stood up, they made eye contact.

  ‘Now what?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re going to call off Warner,’ he said.

  ‘I’m what?’

  ‘You heard me,’ Pete said, waving the gun at her.

  Her concern at the moment was for Suzette who appeared to be hyperventilating. In that position, on her back with her arms pulled up, Suzette’s chest was being constricted. Moving across the room toward her friend made Pete jump forward so she paused. She didn’t want him tensing, or getting nervous, because even from here she could see that his trigger finger was twitchy.

  ‘I’m just going to check that she’s ok,’ Lyssa said. ‘She’s uncomfortable.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be here if she’d listened to me,’ Pete said in a hiss, then turned his attention to Suzette. ‘You should have listened to me. I was looking after you. But you just wouldn’t listen, would you?’

  ‘Is this why you wanted to keep us separate?’ Lyssa asked, slowly completing her journey to Suzette, one careful side-step at a time.