James spotted the bandana she'd left in his car and pulled it to his face. Her perfume intoxicated him. He watched her dark outline against the building wave goodbye and turn to unlock the door before he started his car and pulled away from the curb. He couldn't believe how lucky he was to have found her.
Chapter 14
-Reckoning-
Landi had just inserted her key when a noise from behind alerted her that Jim had returned. She turned just as she felt him grab her shoulder.
"Ja—" she started to say as she spun to greet him. A sharp pressure on her windpipe prevented her from continuing.
A face contorted with rage, less than an inch from her own, met her. Lifted from the ground by the neck, she flailed wildly, unable to scream for help.
"Did you think you could move on that easily?" Rick hissed.
She recognized his voice before his features. Seconds slowed to what seemed like minutes as her initial fright faded to a surreal peace.
He's going to kill me this time.
She tossed her keys as far away as possible as she thrashed, knowing her apartment remained locked. He didn't seem to notice.
At least he can't drag me inside.
That threat removed, she tried to relax and force herself to go limp. Ireland moved her head slightly back and forth to intimate that he was mistaken about her moving on. Always tall and wiry, Rick seemed to possess super human strength, elevating her with only one of his arms while pinning her shoulder to the door with the other. She made a raspy, croaking sound, trying to pronounce his name. She touched one tip of a tennis shoe to the ground, then the other, attempting to support her weight and relieve some of the pressure on her neck.
He dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, no doubt to fade into the background while lying in wait for her. Rick wore his raven black, straight hair longer than the last time she saw him, but otherwise, he appeared the same, right down to the crazed look in his large, dark eyes. His pale, white skin revealed his nocturnal nature—his preference to darkness over daylight.
Just as she began to lose consciousness, his arm began to shake and he lowered her enough for her feet to touch the ground. He kept one hand around her neck but slightly lessened the pressure he applied.
"You owe me, Landi," he spat in her ear.
She could feel his hot breath on the side of her face, and it repulsed her. Gasping for air, she forced herself to remain calm, to appear submissive. Her mind raced for a way out of the situation, knowing he wouldn't fall for the same ploy she used last time. He'd cut off her ability to scream by bruising her windpipe. Only a rasp escaped her mouth when she tried to call for help.
He continued, his hissing voice almost a jeer. "I waited for you. Not just the night you ran away, either. I could have had any number of girls, Landi, but I waited for you and you decided to cheat me out of what was mine. Nobody cheats me!"
Rick slowly licked the side of her face, from her jaw to the top of her ear. She recoiled before she could stop the reflex, and he responded by squeezing his fingers tighter around her throat.
"What's wrong? I'm not good enough for you anymore? Your mother thinks I am. Hatti told me where to find you."
Rick's lips stretched from ear to ear, revealing an evil grin. She'd never seen him like this. His expression didn't even seem human. Instinctively, Landi tried to look away, he appeared so horrible. He used his fingers to trap her chin and lift her face to his. He pressed his body hard against hers so that she could barely breathe. The door knob dug painfully into her back. He slowly lowered his mouth to claim her lips.
"I'm not letting you go again," he sneered just before taking her mouth.
* * * * *
James rounded the corner onto Venice Boulevard, an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. Something didn't seem right. He couldn't see Ireland's face as she waved goodbye. Normally, the light above her door illuminated the girl clearly. The bulb must have gone out. Believing he had his answer, he breathed a sigh of relief as he accelerated towards his sister's apartment.
But something still nagged at him. He'd learned over the years to trust his instincts. Jim made a U-turn and headed back towards Landi's apartment, going over everything he did and saw from the time he parked his car in front of her building. His learned this method during his Naval Intelligence training.
Everything except her being in shadows seemed normal, until he relived turning off her street. Around the corner, he'd observed a dark muscle car. Now, he realized that vehicle was out of place. It wasn't normally parked there, or anywhere else around her residence. He'd seen one like it somewhere else—but where? A similar black automobile had pulled in front of Hatti's and idled its engine during his visit to Cadiz.
Oh, God.
He sped back to Ireland's apartment, running red lights and squealing around corners. He came close to hitting several parked vehicles. As soon as he turned onto the girl's street, he screeched to a stop and leapt from his car, leaving it in the middle of the lane, its door ajar. The entrance to her unit was on the end of the building, around its corner, and he sprinted there at full speed.
He caught a glimpse of strawberry hair, but every other part of her was engulfed by a dark form. James saw red. He grabbed her attacker, hit him in the face, and threw him into the alley that ran behind the apartment. Rick's body hit a metal dumpster with a sickening clang, leaving a large indent in its side. He now lay motionless on his stomach on the asphalt, a strange gurgling sound coming from his lungs. James took two steps towards him, prepared to finish him, when a faint rasp grabbed his attention. He turned to see Ireland crumpled on the ground against her door.
In a split second, he was at her side. He saw plum colored marks on her neck and knew she'd been choked. With one smooth movement, he gently scooped her up in his arms and tried the knob. It remained locked.
"Ireland, can you hear me?" he asked, his voice unsteady.
She nodded and shifted her gaze from some far off point to James.
"Are you all right?"
Landi nodded again and mouthed, Can't talk. She fixed her eyes on his and tried to smile. Tears began to roll down her cheeks even as the corners of her mouth twitched upwards, her lips trembling. She began to shiver.
"I'm taking you to the hospital."
As James carried her towards his car, she dug her fingers into his shoulders and shook her head. She tried to say No several times.
"You're hurt. You need to see a doctor," he said, placing her in his passenger seat.
"No," she rasped.
Her eyes grew large, and she appeared frightened.
"Did you know that guy?" he asked in as tender a tone as he could muster.
Rick, she mouthed while nodding.
"Your ex?"
She nodded again.
"My keys," she said in a faint whisper.
"Where are they?" he asked.
She gingerly moved her head in the direction of her apartment.
"All right."
James gently placed her in his car and locked the doors, returning to her stoop. He could still hear the gurgles coming from Rick but didn’t care. He understood that Ireland didn't want to deal with the police. She wanted him to find her keys so there would be no evidence of her attack. He glanced around the immediate area, looking for a glint of metal. She was right-handed, so she probably flung the keys in that direction, he reasoned, spotting a nearby bush. Groping through its dense foliage, he found what he was looking for. He slipped them in his pocket and returned to the car.
Once on the freeway, he phoned one of his associates and reported that someone needed help behind the apartment at Landi's address. Ireland only caught the jist of the conversation but she knew she hadn't been mentioned.
James drove straight to Palmdale. Before arriving, his coworker called him back, reporting that the local police had found Rick, after a tip-off informed them of his location. The guy had been taken to the nearest hospital and was being treated for a punctur
ed lung, broken ribs, fractured cheek bones, and a serious concussion. It turned out that he was wanted by the San Bernardino Court for a Failure to Appear involving armed robbery charges, and across the border in Arizona for skipping out on bail in a drug case. His friend informed Jim that Rick Jones would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law in those instances, and any other law enforcement might uncover.
"What on Earth?" Donald Crimshaw exclaimed when he opened the door to find his son cradling Ireland in his arms like a baby.
The girl looked terrible. Donald took a step closer and noticed the marks on her neck. She appeared to be sleeping. Jim watched as his dad's jaw dropped and his eyes grew wide.
"She needs a place to rest—somewhere she feels safe, Dad," James whispered.
"What she needs is a doctor!" he whisper-yelled at his son.
Donald moved out of the way as James carried Landi inside and down the hall to Katrina's room. His father trailed at his heels and drew the covers from the bed as James carefully laid the girl down, then pulled blankets over her small body. Both men exited the dark room without saying anything.
"What happened, James?" his father demanded, gesticulating from behind the kitchen counter.
Mr. Crimshaw measured coffee grinds into his caffeine machine and filled the pot with water. He flipped a switch, and James took a deep breath as the familiar sounds of the automatic coffee maker brought a small bit of comfort to the former sailor. Landi was safe—safe in his father's home and resting in his sister's bed. Now, all he had to do was explain things to his dad.
"I got a disturbing call from your sister today. She said you'd gotten mixed up with her assistant somehow, hanging out at the apartment instead of working. I had to talk her out of shortening her honeymoon to come back and sort things out."
"Kiki!" James growled between gritted teeth, his lips curled back inside his mouth forming a snarl.
His father continued, "What have you got to say for yourself, James? Everyone warned you to stay away from that poor girl, and look what it's come to. How could you take advantage of her? She's all alone in the world, Jim. Don't you understand that? She's young and all alone in the world!" Donald's decibel level rose with his frustration to a shouting level.
"No, she isn't!" James snapped. "She's not as young as you think, and she's certainly not alone, Dad!" he yelled at his father, throwing his hands in the air.
Why did everyone always think the worst of him? He watched as his father's eyes grew wide with disbelief.
"You'd better start at the beginning, Son," he said, pointing to a kitchen chair.
Jim complied and sat down. His father brought him a cup of coffee and eased into a chair across the table from his boy. Donald observed raw spots on his son's knuckles. James had punched someone, and by the looks of his hands, he'd done some damage.
"Start with what happened tonight," his father commanded, hiding his worry.
His son had been a bit of a handful growing up. Jim's temper in junior high and the first years of high school earned him the reputation of someone not to be messed with, and the Crimshaws' visits to the principal kept him on close terms with the administration. James never started a fight, but he'd sure finish one, often coming to the aid of smaller students about to be victimized by bullies. By his junior year, his reputation set in stone, no one dared try the boy, and he avoided any further brawls.
He nodded and drew in a deep breath.
"Landi's former boyfriend attacked her. He's done it once before that I know of. She was running from him when she came to Los Angeles. Luckily, I came upon them and stopped him."
"Is he alive?" Donald asked, staring at his son's knuckles.
"Yeah, the scum will make it. But, he's going to do some serious time in a hospital and then in jail. He's wanted for several crimes in more than one state."
James saw his father's expression and didn't like it.
"Don't think poorly of Ireland for getting involved with him, Dad. She's known him since she was a kid, before he became a criminal. They dated in high school, nothing more."
"So you called the police?"
"Sort of. Don't worry about it, Dad. It's all taken care of, and Ireland won't need to be involved or even face the creep again."
"Are you sure she doesn't need a doctor?"
"I don't think so. I examined her, and I think she's just got a bruised windpipe and some sore spots where he manhandled her. Her voice should be better tomorrow."
Donald released a long sigh. Jutting his lower lip out, he directed his exhale towards the ceiling. He took a gulp of coffee, then wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
"Continue," he said, still not at ease with the situation.
"All right, but you cannot repeat most of what I'm going to tell you—and don't be angry with me for any misleading statements I might have made to you and Katrina."
"You mean lies?"
"Whatever you choose to call it, Dad." James grinned at his father, hoping to lighten the mood, before continuing. It would be a relief to get this all off his chest.
"I didn't re-enlist last year, like I led everyone to believe."
"Come again?" Donald leaned forward in his chair and raised both brows high on his forehead.
"I joined the Defense Intelligence Agency instead. They wanted my help on a special mission."
Jim paused to give his father time to digest his words. He waited until the older man settled back in his chair and his features relaxed into a more normal position.
"So all the talk about working for a defense contractor was a load of bull?"
"Some of it. But I had a good reason for any lies I told. Remember my friend, Greg Arnold?"
Donald nodded.
"He disappeared on a special assignment in Afghanistan. The last we knew, he'd infiltrated a troublesome warlord's tribe. His mission was part of a much larger operation we had going on. He got one message out, then went silent. In the meantime, a group of our men was ambushed by said native's people. It seemed they had inside information. Brass began to wonder if Greg had turned. Since I knew him so well, they wanted me involved—at first just to analyze data and give them whatever information I could. No one could figure out Greg's motives for switching sides until the DIA discovered an opium connection."
"Surely your friend had nothing to do with that," Donald stated, calmer now.
"I hoped not, but we had to be sure. It got really ugly, Dad—messed with my head, too. They decided to send a team in after him, and I got nominated to go along—to lead it, actually. My superiors figured I'd be the best one to interrogate him. They wanted it done immediately after we secured him, if we could find him at all."
James took a swallow of his hot drink and glanced around the room.
"Well, what happened?"
"We were able to retrieve the target. He was wounded pretty badly when we got to him. We lost a man in the process."
"I'm sorry, Son. Did Greg turn out to be innocent?"
Donald knew how his boy suffered when something happened to a fellow military man.
"That's what I've been trying to find out. When we located the camp where he'd been stashed, he had serious injuries. We tried to get him out without being noticed, but our luck didn't hold, and someone discovered us just as we evacuated Greg. A firefight broke out, and one of our men went down. We managed to do enough damage to the Afghans to get back to base with our target intact. He wasn't up to an interrogation, though, believe me. He's been in Walter Reed for months."
"What's his condition?"
"The doctors said he'd never walk again. He suffered a spinal injury at the hands of the enemy. He claimed they caught him trying to get a message out. The good news is, he's beaten the odds. He's walking with assistance and getting better every day."
"That is wonderful news. Has he been cleared of any wrong doing?"
"There's a whole team working on that. Some figured if he had gotten involved with the drug trade, he'd have to have a trusted contac
t here in the states to handle banking, launder his take, or even help with distribution. They know drugs come across the border from Mexico and even in from the coast, so they decided to focus some of their efforts in California. Greg grew up in Nevada, close by."
"Is that what you've been working on? It doesn't explain why you set up housekeeping at your sister's, James."
His dad lifted an eyebrow and dipped his chin, giving his son a dubious expression.
"This is the crazy part of this whole thing—"
"You mean everything to this point has been mundane?"
Donald chuckled in spite of himself, more from frustration and worry than anything else.
"You might want to buckle up, Dad. I can hardly believe it myself. Ready?"
His father nodded.
"Greg is adopted. He has some memories of his early childhood, before his parents died. He's always been convinced he had a brother. In fact, for years, he's talked about tracking him down. He checked Clark County records, where it turns out he was born. He discovered his parents had been killed in a car accident. They had no known relatives, so child services stepped in. After a time in foster care, he got lucky and a loving couple adopted him. A couple of years ago, he got access to his birth and adoption records, but he couldn't find any mention of siblings anywhere. He began to think maybe he'd imagined everything and stopped discussing it sometime before he disappeared."
The sound of Bowzer's nails tapping the tile in the hallway drew their attention. The dog soon appeared and ambled over to James, who reached down and scratched the bulldog's ears.
"Hey there, Sleepy Head," Donald said, patting the animal when Bowzer plopped down next to his master.
"I guess you need to trim those nails, don't you?" James remarked.
Donald looked up at his son and smiled.
A Calculated Romance Page 14
