“God no,” Tim smiled. “I wouldn’t ask anyone to hang out in there. I think a rat king rules in there.”
Kissy laid her fingers on his. Once she felt his warm hand wrap around hers she felt the will to live bursting in her heart again. She looked up. He was staring back at the pile of curtains and sandbags sticking out of the hole in the stage. He was a hero. A real life hero and a very pretty man.
She chuckled and asked, “Shall we run?”
He looked down. His gray eyes laughed with her. Then he shrugged.
And they ran through the audience and through the greenroom towards the pouring rain.
Twenty-three
Mayor Rory Sutton could see that Killer was torn. The dog wanted to run with Tim and Kiersten but he’d been told to stay. Rory with his perfect hair and well-known affability waited for the dog to settle. He strode into the kitchen and snaked a dishtowel from the oven handle. Killer was once again growling at Mrs. Vanessa Elian when he returned with it. Of course the woman had tried to make a move.
He wiped down the red vinyl seat of the old-fashioned chair and then picked it up and carefully positioned it closer to the pair. He set it at an angle with the back to the fabulous glass block window so that he could see the front door to the loft as well as focus on his objective.
His objective was struggling to breathe. Rory pondered the metaphor inherent in the KC’s front door being on the backside of the building. The KC, whether this one or the woman he had known years ago, approached the world differently. The KC cultivated highly lucrative black market skills. He could be rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. But he was homeless, living out of one small bag and satchel of tricks. All because he strived to a moral standard rarely seen in the front door world Rory had occupied for most of his life. Rory tried to make the world a better place through politics. He fought for the benefit of the majority by supporting good people. The Killer with a Conscience fought for the benefit of the majority by killing bad people.
Rory could see the appeal. But he couldn’t anticipate of the long-term effects of that method. There was some deterrence to those in the deep underground who heard of the KC’s reputation. There was no chance for recidivism. But Rory wanted more. He believed in people and he believed he could change their hearts. Looking at the Great Dane/giraffe mix before him, he was reminded of Councilwoman Patrice Coldman whose heart he had failed to even thaw. His method had failed so spectacularly with her that she’d tried to have him killed. Unfortunately for her she hadn’t been deep enough in the underground to have heard of the KC’s reputation for killing clients who deceived him.
And with her death he lost any link to her nefarious dealings in his city. Until Red had approached him with a proposition.
“Help.” The word was flung with droplets of spittle from Mrs. Elian’s lips.
“Of course,” Rory murmured. “You only needed to ask.”
He uncapped the syringe and pulled a length of rubber he’d cut from one of his wife’s worn out exercise bands. He stood to take two steps closer.
A glance at the ratchet pulley showed it still locked. Rory knelt near the folded woman. He unzipped and pulled off each of her tall black boots and tossed them aside. Feeling like a pirate he held the syringe in his teeth as he used the length of rubber to secure Mrs. Elian’s ankles to each other.
“I’m afraid you’ve given me reason to be distrustful of you. So I will take a few precautions before I return your health to you.”
He released the ratchet and pulled the rope through. Relief eased her breath just a bit as her arms lowered to the ground. When he’d collected enough slack, he wrapped the rope around the woman’s thighs. In the cat suit it was hard to miss her strong thighs and he’d already heard plenty about her devious mind. With her hands secured under her thighs, Mrs. Elian looked as though she were hugging her legs. She was forced to sit in a V or almost an N shape and looked quite uncomfortable. Although he noticed the position made breathing easier.
Rory was concerned by her teeth. He wished he could gag her but he needed her to be able to speak. He would have to risk it. Unless.
He pulled a further length of rope through the pulley and looped it around her neck. He secured it with a slip knot so that she would not be choked if she didn’t move. Then he tightened the loose end through the pulley again and closed the ratchet, pulling it just a little taut so that Mrs. Elian’s back was firmly against the wall.
“There. Now I think we can safely negotiate.”
He saw a flash of fear and anger in her eyes though she was unable to speak.
“Oh no,” he assured her. “I’m a man of my word.”
He pulled another length of the elastiband from his pocket and quick tied it around her right bicep, stepping over her immobile form and between she and Killer to reach it. Then he held the tip of the needle at her popping blue vein.
“But I own you now,” he said, waiting for her to look in to his eyes, “agreed?”
Viciousness on par with Killer’s growl sparked in her eyes. But like Killer’s growl, it was only one facet of this woman. Rory waited for her wiser instincts to kick in. He let his mind wander, wondering about the team’s success in the club. His eyes wandered to the front door.
Mrs. Elian jerked and grunted to regain his attention. When he looked into her eyes, she nodded. It was a reluctant agreement gained only by life or death blackmail so he could not trust it. But for now it would have to do.
Rory slid the needle into her arm like an ace phlebotomist. His wife had diabetes and he’d seen this process done many times. Rory had that special ability to learn by observing. He didn’t consider it a special ability, though it had been described as such throughout his political career. He simply believed that he listened. Most people didn’t listen.
He removed the rubber band from her arm and returned to his seat in the red chair to listen as Vanessa Elian’s airways opened up. Sweat poured down her face and darkened the gold fabric beneath her breasts and armpits. Her eyes drifted closed and she leaned back against the wall as her lungs filled with oxygen. He could see muscles jumping in her calves and even her forearms as the drug worked its magic, relaxing every part of the dealer’s body.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked after a while.
The eyes she turned to him were exhausted. “Yes.”
“Would you like to tell me anything else about the bomb you’ve put in the Theater?”
“Yes. Thank you for asking.”
There was twitch in her voice as she thanked him. Killer jerked his head to look at the movement beneath Mrs. Elian’s thighs. Rory dove from his chair.
But too late. She pressed hard on the protruding knob of her anklet, a smile just then opening her face. “It’s not the real bomb.”
Then the building rocked with an explosion.
Twenty-four
Kissy shook her head. Rubble rained from the sky along with actual rain. Straggling, doubting guests were now running to the street with no regard for others. The rock garden’s little river ran pink with blood from scraped knees and palms as people tripped in their rush to get away from the explosions.
Kissy could see patrons with hands to their faces, glass sticking out of their arms. They ran, blind, out of the front door. She saw Terry Able carry two men out of the lobby, one over his shoulder and one under an arm. He set them in the garden, grabbing a woman in a Killer’s Cross t-shirt to take care of them. Then he turned and ran back into the building.
She couldn’t hear anything around her. Her ears rang with sounds of the blast. They’d been in the green room when the bomb had gone off. Only nothing had struck them. She thought at first that their silly curtains and sandbags had done the trick. She’d stopped, turned to go back and see the limited damage. But then she’d heard the screaming.
Tim barely paused in the greenroom when the blast rocked the building. He’d kept running out and around the building so he was already in the rain rounding Killer’s cag
e when the second bomb exploded in the small stairwell. Kissy was thrown backwards. She struck her head on the exposed frame arm of the battered couch and then barely caught her face from slamming into the concrete floor.
Two bombs. And neither was the one under the stage. Kissy knew she had to get out.
She dragged herself to her feet, only then realizing something had pierced her calf. She looked back and saw a splinter of the ancient mirror sticking out of her leg. She reached back to pull it out and stopped. She didn’t have time to staunch the blood flow that would follow. So she ignored the pain and dove for the doorway.
She pulled herself out of the greenroom and kept going for the Lounge doors. The Theater seemed to have grown since she’d dragged Julia in there just a couple hours ago but pushing off the backs of couches and chairs she made it. The bolt was warped. It wouldn’t unlock. Frustrated, she slammed her fists against the wood. The door fell off its hinges into the main room of the club.
The Lounge was chaos. The bar was no more. Its remains decorated the entire room. A few individuals struggled for the exits but most of the people in the club lay on the cold ground surrounded by glass and booze. Several lay near the front bookcase entrance and another group of bodies rested on the far side of the room by the Disco doors. Nearest Kissy, a woman sprawled face down, her long silky black hair strewn out like a cape.
As Kissy stumbled to reach this woman, another explosion flung bottles of absinthe and champagne from Tim’s pride and joy. Sculptures of stacked glasses shattered and flew across the club.
The woman she’d been headed for stirred at the sound and Kissy dove in to shield her from the new onslaught. Once the shards stopped raining down around them, she knelt back and then fell forward again when she hit the glass in her leg.
“Stay.” The woman crawled carefully out from under Kissy. Her face was covered in blood and dirt but Kissy could see just enough of the sharp features to recognize Jen, the EMT.
Jen should have been out of the club already. She’d been right beside Curt when he’d headed out with Julia over his shoulder. As Jen rolled herself clear, Kissy saw the man the EMT had been protecting. The man was unconscious, probably from the gash in his forehead. He didn’t object when Jen tore a strip of fabric from his shirt. She wrapped the fabric beneath Kissy’s knee and tightened the tourniquet until Kissy cried out. Two harsh yanks secured the knot and Jen turned to rip two more strips from the not quite dead man’s shirt.
She tied one tightly about the gash in his head, tucking the guy’s canary yellow handkerchief in under it to soak up the blood. She then turned and with no warning yanked the shard from Kissy’s leg.
Kissy didn’t pass out. But it was a close thing. Jen let the leg bleed for a moment and then secured the last strip of party boy’s shirt around the gash.
Kissy studied the Lounge. The bar had been completely destroyed. The Absinthe station was demolished. She looked over at the booth they’d been conferring in earlier and had a dark premonition that Vanessa had set a bomb there before Kissy shocked her unconscious. She risked a glance at Jen even as she maneuvered her shoulder under the party guy’s.
“You done?” she asked, unable to hear her own voice.
Jen nodded.
“Then let’s get out of here before another one goes—“
Kissy didn’t even finish her sentence when the building rocked again from an explosion in the Disco.
Jen scrambled to the guy’s far side and together they lifted him to his feet which was a little ridiculous since his feet didn’t work any better than the rest of him. They dragged him along, Kissy hopping to stay upright. She kept her eyes focused on the floor in front of her to keep from tripping and throwing the whole game.
So at the doorway she saw the boots of the men blocking them before she noticed the yellow plastic of their fire retardant pants. The cavalry had arrived!
Jen and Kissy stepped back. Kissy saw Jen talking to the firemen but she couldn’t hear a word. Jen asked her a question but Kissy just shook her head.
And then Terrance was there. The bouncer Tim had hired after he played a last minute Santa Claus at the Winterfest gazebo took the unconscious boy from the women. He tossed him over his shoulder and pushed gently past them to grab another body.
Jen pushed Kissy toward the bookstore exit, but she turned back to continue doing triage of the bodies Terrance left behind.
Kissy stole one last look at the destruction in the Lounge and turned away to the pristine and totally empty bookstore. She glanced longingly at the red velvet couch in the corner of the shelf lined room. It would be so nice to lie down, to rest for just a minute.
A small square door in the side wall flapped open and Killer wriggled out. He shook himself, his ears flapping wildly with the sound of a helicopter approaching and then caught sight of Kissy. She saw him throw his head back and bark or howl. A smile crept onto her face as the gigantic puppy bounded over, circled her, and led her outside into the stormy weather and seething masses.
Then the building rocked with an explosion.
Twenty-five
“Kissy!” Tim yelled again, scanning the courtyard as far as he could see. In the two hours since the second bomb separated them, he’d helped a dozen people limp to the ambulances lined up on the street. He’d scanned miles of flesh for glass splinters and shown emergency workers all the hidden closets and secret doorways in his club. He hadn’t found Kiersten anywhere.
Again, his eyes strayed to the front entrance. The mayor’s wife came out of the open door with a furry burden in her arms. Turning down several offers of help, Paula Seymour-Sutton picked her way into the rock garden and set Killer down in the middle of the courtyard atop an ironic stone sculpture of Ayers rock. He’d cut up his paws on glass when he’d bounded into the Lounge with Terrance to search for any hidden wounded. The mayor’s wife told him to Stay.
She gave him another kiss and then flashed a hopeful grin at Jen. “When you get a chance?”
The EMT nodded. Paula rushed off, collecting her soaking wet hair into a ponytail as she went.
Jen had slicked her hair into a bun which she covered with a face mask. The face mask was sodden.
Rain dripped into his eyes, but Tim focused, waiting with his wad of bandages while Jen firmed her hold on the splinter of bar that had rammed itself into Terry Able’s inner thigh when the last bomb blew. The EMT glanced at the guy’s face. He was staring intensely at the police cordoning off the entrance to the club with their yellow tape. Jen didn’t even check in with Tim. She yanked. He slid the absorbent material in and applied pressure to the wound. He also knelt up to shield the cloth from the rain somewhat.
He checked out the stake as Jen turned it over in her hands. It looked like she’d gotten it out clean.
“Good news, brother,” he said to the gasping sculptor, “Buffy missed.”
He didn’t laugh. He’d been making the EMTs treat the guests first and had just enough energy left to keep from fainting.
Jen lifted an edge of the fabric to examine the wound. “Good. It doesn’t look too bad. But no going home. You have to go to the hospital. Whether you go in one of the ambulances when they come back or someone drives you, you have to see a doctor tonight,” she sat back and checked her watch, “this morning.
Terry nodded silently.
“It’s not just your leg. It’s your life,” she insisted.
“I’m going,” he assured her. “Corrine the coat check girl is gonna take me.”
“Good.”
Jen had squirted the wound with some anti-bacterial liquid and she started to wrap a bandage around the leg to hold the pressure pad in place. Tim stopped her.
“I can do this part. Could you check out Killer?”
Jen handed over the wrapping. She stood and looked around the courtyard. She must not have seen any alert flags because she picked up the first aid kit she’d acquired from a fire truck and headed over to the mini-Uluru.
“Tim!”
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Tim’s head snapped up. Kissy’s voice carried over the din but he couldn’t find her face. Terry looked up as Avi’s bass joined Kissy’s cry.
“Tim Goodenuff!”
“Go,” Terry urged. “I’ve got this.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Tim asked, looking into the man’s pale face.
Terry looked back at him, blinking a few times before he said, “Yeah. Of course I’m kidding.”
Tim tied off the wrap. He pulled the silver emergency blanket down over the wound and stood. “You’re good?”
“He’s over here!” The coat check girl tripped as she ran towards them while calling over her shoulder.
Tim caught her. He slammed a knee into the rocks rescuing her but turned his yell of pain to a better purpose.
“Kissy! Avi!” he called over Corinne’s shoulder as he helped her find her balance.
She turned her attention to Terry and the looks that passed between them made Tim hurry away.
He headed towards the club’s front door, now guarded by two uniformed officers. He called again when Kissy limped off in the wrong direction. “Kissy!”
She turned in his direction and froze, searching through the darkness for him. She wisely didn’t stumble straight over the stones like Corinne. Her red dress clung to her in the rain, frayed and missing most of its sparkle. She had braided her hair and draped it over a shoulder and her makeup had been entirely washed away. Two makeshift bandages were wrapped about her left calf, the lower one stained brown with blood. Her knees were scraped and dirty and when she put a hand over her eyes to shield them from the giant floods washing the area in light, he saw that her palms were too.
Avi stood behind her, his white undershirt stained black with dirt, soot, and blood. He’d found a black knit take and the gash over his eye sported three butterfly bandages. When he spotted Tim, he leaned down to whisper in Kissy’s ear. The hand he laid on her shoulder was wrapped in gauze.
“Kissy,” Tim began, stepping out of the rock garden and onto the paved front deck of the club. “Are you—“
Killer on Call 6 Book Bundle (Books 1-6) Page 42
