by Anna Collins
I grabbed him before he could pitch forward and hurt himself even more. It was mostly his ego that had been bruised quite considerably, but it wasn’t going to make him compliant. He held onto me for support. It looked to me like I had become his personal savior. I didn’t see it this way. From his point of view, it would appear I was some kind of guardian angel sent down here to protect him against those things which could do him harm.
“The only thing I know about Nash Miles is he has a very kind heart. At least this is the way they project him to be in the press. He donates to various charities, and he has a squeaky clean image with no blemishes at all. I don’t know what you did to get on his bad side, but for him to go this far means you’re probably right about there being something personal. I doubt this is just all about business. He can easily have anything he wants with the snap of his fingers,” I said while helping him to make his way up to the house which was now vacant. It wouldn’t be this way for long. The first thing Rita and Wes were going to do was come back here to regroup.
“I’m not sure what’s happening, but I have to put out some feelers and find out if Nash has a grudge against me I don’t know about. It might not be a good idea to stay here, but I wanna take a look around to see if they left anything to lead us to the reason why this is all happening. I just need some time to get my sea legs back. That drug was quite powerful and knocked me out within a couple of sips of the champagne. I’m not even sure it was champagne but it really doesn’t matter,” Casper said as we got back up to the house and went inside to see everything was as it had been before we left. Nothing was out of the ordinary. No luggage was packed to signify they were about to skip town.
“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll go to their office and see if I can’t find anything that will reveal where Nash might be hiding. I don’t think it’s going to be very hard to find him. It’s not like you knew he was responsible for this in the first place,” I said as he was on the couch with his hands up on his face and looking quite like somebody who had lost his best friend.
“I’ve known Nash for quite some time personally and professionally, but we never really did get along for some reason. I always felt there was some kind of mistrust between us I couldn’t put my finger on. I thought it might be about a woman, but he has a new one practically every time I turn around. This is something we don’t have in common. I’ve always wanted to be with one person. My wife, on the other hand, had other ideas and seeing her with other men didn’t exactly instill confidence in me we were going to last,” Casper said as he sat there. I went to make a circuit of the house to see if I could find an office they were using for illegal activities.
“I don’t know what you did, or maybe you did something you don’t even know you did. That doesn’t really make much sense, but what does at this point. I hope you are not leaving something out of this story. I would hate to think you’re keeping something from me because you want to protect me. You know by now I can take care of myself,” I said with my voice raised so he could hear me from the other side of the house.
I looked back at what I had done to those two, and it made me cringe to think my hands were capable of such a heinous act. What else was there lurking underneath I didn’t know about? Was being around Casper making me see the darker side of humanity? I couldn’t help but think it was a fitting end, but also something the law might frown upon. Being with Casper in the flesh and learning about him had turned me into the woman I was today. I look at the woman I was, and there was no way she would be able to fight like her life depended on it. I was grateful I didn’t have to use the gun, but I was frightened at how easily I had put my finger on the trigger and was ready to use it.
“There’s no possible way they have anything here we could use. Come to think of it, they didn’t know we were going to survive the maiden voyage. It could be they are so confident in their abilities they would keep things lying around. They would probably think they were protected in some way,” Casper said as I had found an office, but the door was locked. Like that was going to stop me in any way.
“What I need you to do right now is to think about what kind of dealings you’ve had with Nash recently. Something might have rubbed him the wrong way. Perhaps, it was as simple as a business transaction going your way. Maybe a stock or some other business you might have conducted it didn’t seem like it was fair to him,” I said as I picked up this glass figurine of a dolphin and smashed into the glass of the office.
“I’m not even going to ask you what you’re doing. I do want to let you know we don’t have that much time to be here. We need to find someplace to lay low for the evening and then we’re going to get on that boat and go back home. I know it’s not your home, but it is mine, and I think I can help you navigate the streets. Unfortunately, this is a world unknown to you where everybody has a knife ready to backstab the other. It’s a world of business, politics, and decisions made very quickly and without any regard for any collateral damage left behind. It’s about power and how much can be had over another. I do want you to know I’m not that person anymore, but I still feel I could easily fall back into old habits,” Casper said as I reached into the broken glass of the door to find the lock on the other side.
I had to be very careful about cutting myself on the shards, but I did my best to clean up with a towel I had found in a nearby bathroom. I used it to shield my hand, and it didn’t take much to find the lock. It opened to what constituted a chaos. They seemed like they were well organized, but you wouldn’t know it from the piles of paper; they were literally everywhere.
“When you’re feeling better, I think you should come here and see this for yourself. I wouldn’t even know where to begin to describe something like this. There is no rhyme or reason to their organizational skills. I don’t see anything to indicate some kind of method to their madness. I imagine they know where everything is. This all goes hand in hand in the way they think off the wall,” I said as I went around to the front of the desk thinking the most recent jobs they might have conducted would be right there in front of them.
I heard footsteps, and I went into a defensive posture with a paperweight in my hand ready to use it on anybody who might come through the door. Casper was still holding his head, and I could tell he was fighting some sort of a migraine as a result of the byproduct of the drug still running through his veins.
“This was the only room they never showed me when I was here. I never thought anything about it at that time, but I see now I should’ve been more astute. On the surface, they seemed genuine and a little odd, but this takes it to a whole new level. I hope for our sake they never darken our doorstep again, but it depends on how Nash wants to play this. He could find it necessary to tell them to get the job done or else,” Casper said as he slumped into a nearby chair knocking off a pile of papers which toppled over with barely a whisper of motion.
“I’m not even sure what I’m looking at here. It’s like they have their own language. None of this makes any sense, but I have seen Nash’s name mentioned a couple of times. The language used is like some kind of gibberish only a child would understand. It would stand to reason they would want to hide their dealings and what better way to do it than to have it in some kind of code they only knew. I’m going to look around for anything to help us decipher this code, but I’m not holding my breath,” I searched the drawers I had to open with a letter opener.
I found I had some unique skill sets I didn’t even know about. I never imagined in a million years I would be able to smash my way into an office using bodily force. I never imagined I would be able to use a letter opener to fiddle with the locks on a desk drawer to make it accessible to my eager eyes.
“It doesn’t look like we’re going to find much here, but we should stay for as long as possible. Right now, this is really the only place safe considering it was in the hands of homicidal maniacs. I should’ve believed you when you told me Rita was dangerous. I think I knew they were unpredictable, but I d
idn’t believe they really meant to hurt you. I always got the feeling she was kind of sweet on me. It is possible they use this way to get close to a particular subject. They ingratiate themselves into their lives, and then they make it more personal by making it more physical,” Casper said as he was starting to get a pretty good idea of how these two might have worked better as a team than solo.
“We are taking a bit of a risk staying here. They could come here and find us with our pants down. They could easily find themselves getting rescued by a trawler or maybe they had something on them GPS activated. They seem like they would think of every contingency. They might seem a little quirky, but underneath they know exactly what they’re doing. We’ll stay here for the amount of time it takes for us to see if we can’t find anything. I don’t think we should be here any longer than necessary. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing on end, and this has never happened before. It’s like I have this new sense of awareness, like a cat ready to attack an unsuspecting prey,” I said.
It was the only way I could describe the way I was feeling. My senses had been heightened. This must’ve been what a blind man goes through when they are left with only their other senses to rely on. I felt as if I was alive for the first time. Living in a world of danger and excitement had made my book turn into something of a masterpiece; it could even be on the New York’s best seller list. Could I even dream for Oprah to give my book a glowing recommendation making it fly off the shelves after it was published?
“I really didn’t see you were the kind of girl who could be standing by my side during this trial of my faith in humanity,” Casper said as he had finally found a bit more strength to begin looking through those papers. Hopefully, they would make sense to a man who had lived in a world of sophistication and in the presence of art and distinctive music.
“I’m finding out I’m not necessarily who I thought I was. It makes sense when you think about it. Nobody really knows what they’re capable of until they are pushed too far. We all find out eventually if we are the type to fight or flee. I thought I was of the latter, but no I realize I have more to offer than that,” I said as I’d found some questionable material with not only Nash’s name on it, but it also Casper’s name.
I cleared the desk and slid the folder in front of his eyes. It wasn’t necessary for me to say anything, he looked up with alarm. I could tell something had happened and these papers made more sense to him than they would to anybody else. He was going to have to lay it out logically, and with the kind of vocabulary, I would understand. This was mostly legalese and a language of its own. Only those who knew how to read between the lines would be able to make any sense of it.
“I thought we were colleagues, but I see now his sense of pride has gotten in the way. This doesn’t tell the whole story, but it certainly does wave few red flags in my opinion,” Casper said as he looked up and saw my face had turned white and there was a good reason for it. Standing in the doorway was a man wielding what looked like a sawed-off shotgun.
Chapter 30
“I was really hoping you weren’t going to find any of this. Rita and Wes were not the only ones Nash hired to get rid of you. I was the last resort. I’ve been waiting, watching from the shadows and hoping you would come back alive so I could finish you off myself. If you don’t mind me saying, Casper, you really don’t look that good.” This man said with wild looking hair making him an easy target for any kind of sanitarium seeking to put him away for the rest of his life.
“I don’t know you, but I have to believe there is a way we can work this out without the necessary violence. It would be in your best interest to think about this clearly before you do anything you are going to regret. I have a lot of money and what you’re being paid for is a mere pittance to what you could be making if you were willing to talk about it,” Casper said turning his attention to the negotiation instead of a plea for his life.
“Life is about choices and those you make determine and mold you into the person you are. It’s all about priorities, and how much you value the honor you feel you possess. You’ve been lucky enough to weasel your way out of getting captured or killed. It’s almost as if you have nine lives. You would think by now most of them have already been used up. I don’t mind telling you this job has been more entertaining than any other one. It's a shame I’m the last line of defense. There’s absolutely nothing you can say that’s going to stop me from completing what I have been assigned. I’ve been working with Nash for quite some time, and I’ve always had his back regardless of if I thought his actions were deplorable or not.” This man looked ancient, but in his eyes, there was a youthful appearance I didn’t expect.
“I do believe you have a nickname spoken in hushed voices around the table. Nash always said you were completely reliable, but he never did mention you by name. He told me you were like a Raven, circling ever slowly and waiting for his order to come down and strike with your talons sharp and honed to perfection. I thought you might’ve been a myth, something he had made up to get people he worked with to listen to reason. The exploits he spoke of seemed legendary. They always left most of us scratching our heads wondering if anything he said was anything close to the truth,” Casper said with almost an admiration for the man who was going to put us both down.
“I appreciate the praise. The only thing you don’t know is Nash has a tendency to exaggerate. If you’re expecting me to wait forever to do this then you’re going to realize shortly the idle chitchat is just my way of giving you a moment to make peace with your situation.” The Raven said never more intimidating than standing there with a shotgun that could easily take us both out with one shot.
“I’m not the one that’s giving you the high praise you deserve. Nash has never been shy about talking about you. He was quite convinced you could do better than be in his employ, but saving your life made it necessary for you to keep him alive at any cost. That meant any of those dirty dealings he doesn’t want to speak of falls on your shoulders. Don’t you think by now you have repaid the debt 100 times over? Do you actually have this kind of blind loyalty? One that has no real place in the business world?” Casper said while sitting there quite calmly with his arms crossed over his chest like a soldier ready to do what was needed.
“I take my debt of honor seriously and where others might find necessary compensation would be enough it’s not for me. I will say I don’t like him and I never have from the moment I met him. He could’ve easily let me off the hook saying I didn’t have to stay with him for the rest of his life. He saw I was capable of just about anything and he was determined to use me when it suited his purposes. He sent me as a backup, but he never thought you were going to survive this long. He never considered you someone who had a lucky rabbit’s foot or maybe a guardian angel in the form of a shapely figure,” Raven said as he referred to me.
I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I could think about was to sit back down and not give him any reason to become the deadly professional. There was no point in antagonizing him. I wasn’t sure Casper was getting through to him, but at least keeping him talking was making it easier for me to think we might be able to get out of this in one piece.
“Your reputation is something more of a fact than actual fiction. You are the boogeyman who sleeps in a coffin and only comes out to play at night. We’ve all heard stories, and we’ve all made you larger than life. There are those who don’t believe you are real. Nash never did bring you out, and I think this was part of the mystique. Think about what you’re doing. I’m sure there are those innocent in your eyes that have been haunting you. Don’t let his hold on keep you from seeing the truth. You know he uses you, and you can’t feel very good about it. I’m giving you the chance to walk away from this and maybe what he needs is to be shown his ways are not always the right ones. I could make it worth your while. I know money really doesn’t hold any power over you, but everybody needs a little bit more for that day when they retire,” Casper said using this
opening to see if there was any way money was the answer to his problem.
“I have more than enough money to live on three times over. It has never been about how much money Nash can give me for my services. I actually do enjoy what I do, and you can’t say that for those in my profession. Wes and Rita were exemplary, but they never did know how to look at the bigger picture. I would say I’m sorry for this, but I’m not. It’s only business, and you of all people would understand this more than others,” The Raven had his finger on the trigger, and the click broke the deafening silence in the room.
Raven looked down at this antiquated weapon, and there was almost a smile when he came to realize the gun didn’t go off. If it had, it would’ve blown a hole clear through everything in its path. Sitting behind a desk might have shielded me a little bit, but the fragments that would pierce my body would most definitely be a mortal wound.
It was that momentary distraction; the opening Casper was waiting for. I think he was more surprised he wasn’t dead than anybody. It only seemed to register the fighting instinct which came in the form of him leaping into action and grabbing the shotgun. They were pointing it toward the ceiling.
