Dinner was awesome, as it always is. Afterwards, I helped Grams tidy up and wash the dishes, happy to be spending time with her, content to relax and enjoy my happy place. As I moved around the kitchen, putting things away and cleaning up, I was glad to see the shelves were filled to over-flowing, especially her pantry which was so full I found myself amazed once again at how much stuff she was able to cram in there. That was Grams though, ever the organizer.
Observing how well stocked the kitchen was, wasn’t just me keeping an eye out for Grams. I mean it was, but in more ways than one. The reason the kitchen was so well stocked was that I had a local grocery store deliver to her apartment once a week, more if she needed it.
When I first started it, Grams was furious. She knew right away who had sent the food, even though I hadn’t said a word and neither had the grocery delivery guy. I figured something like that would happen, so I made sure I was around when the delivery came, and it was a good thing I was. Grams was insisting the guy take it all back, pronto, at least until I came over, took her aside, and had a little heart to heart with her. I explained it was me that had sent the order. She said she had already figured that, but that she didn’t need any help. I asked her to put herself in my shoes. It was the least I could to show my appreciation and help out for all the meals she made for me, and all the other little things she did for me. I told her money wasn’t an issue, and that I had more than I needed, so why couldn’t I at least cover the groceries for her?
It took a while, but I finally got her to agree to let me have the groceries delivered for her. The thing was, I knew she was struggling to make ends meet, and I wasn’t about to sit idly by, not when such a little thing for me meant such a huge difference for her. After a while, it became routine, and neither of us mentioned it anymore, except for the odd time when she’d get all sentimental on me, break out the big hugs, and tell me how she didn’t know what she’d do without me.
It wasn’t necessary. I knew how much she cared, and I felt the same way. She was the only family I had in this world, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to do what I could to make her life a little more comfortable. Hell, I would’ve bought her a house and got her a maid service if I thought she’d take it, but I knew she wouldn’t be having any of that, so I settled for the weekly grocery delivery, as well as a few other little things here and there.
I’m pretty sure she’s also figured out by now that it’s me that adds the extra thousand dollars a month to her bank account too, but the subject has never come up, so we’ve never discussed it. I’m happy knowing she’s taken care of, not hurting for cash, and has more than enough food, and I think she’s accepted the fact that I want to help her out, and that it’s no strain on me to do so. A lot of the time, learning how to graciously accept a gift is a lot harder than giving one.
***
After I left Grams, I headed back out on the Ninja, planning to see if there was anything to see at the address I had found for McGinnis. Like Harper, I’d found a photo of McGinnis online, although I didn’t find any Facebook account. Maybe McGinnis was more tech savvy about online security than Harper, or maybe he just wasn’t interested in Facebook. Either way, the result was the same. There was less to be found about McGinnis online than there was for Harper.
The address I had for him was almost the exact opposite end of town from where Harper lived, and an entirely different neighborhood. Older area, more rundown. Not exactly what you’d call a bad neighborhood. More like a tired neighborhood. The kind you see a lot these days where good people are struggling to get by, so busy trying to make ends meet they don’t have time, or the money, to do much in the way of home improvements. Tired. Old. I was kinda’ surprised actually, but if McGinnis was smart about not having a Facebook account, maybe he was just being smart about not showing off his elicit earnings.
I drove down the street, past the apartment building that matched the address of the information I had on where he supposedly lived. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it was old and tired looking. It fit right in.
I stopped at the corner, turned left, and circled around the block, taking in the neighborhood, getting the lay of the land. I wasn’t planning on waiting around to watch the McGinnis’ building to see if he showed up, not tonight anyway. I just wanted to get a look at the area, to get a feel for the place.
Back at McGinnis’ street, I drove past it this time and went up the block on the other side, keeping an eye out behind, taking in my surroundings as I drove. At the next stop sign, I turned right and headed away from McGinnis’ street, digesting what I’d seen in my head, working the angles to figure out what my next move should be with these two, aware of the fact that I might not have much time.
At the next stoplight, my iPhone vibrated in my pocket while I waited for the light to turn green. When it did, I accelerated through the intersection and down the street a bit before pulling over at the side of the road to check my messages.
I had a text message. It was from Emily. All it said was HELP!
****
The Ninja’s engine screamed as I twisted the throttle hard, bouncing the rev limiter off red line on every gear that I shifted through.
Emily didn’t live that far away. Hopefully I could make it there in time.
Hopefully that’s where she was texting from.
Hopefully I didn’t run into any cops on the way.
My mind raced as I steered the bike through traffic, passing cars like they were standing still, which they practically were at the speeds I was going. I pulled the clutch and dropped a gear as I went around a suit in a Mercedes, ignoring the dirty looks and pumping fist as I blew by him.
I took the next corner almost horizontal, the Ninja’s tires barely keeping their grip on the road. Thank God it wasn’t raining.
I swore as I saw the red light ahead of me, lines of cars waiting in both directions. I split the lane and raced up to the intersection in between the lines of cars. Traffic was busy, but not that heavy.
As vehicles made their way through the intersection from the other direction, I waited for a moment, searching for even the slightest break, and dumped the clutch when I saw it. The Ninja shot forward, the back tire screaming a duet with the motor as I barely made it through the narrow gap between the tail end of a city bus and the cars behind it.
A couple more harrowing turns, a few more near misses, and I was on Emily’s street. The clock in my head said it couldn’t have been more than five minutes since I got her text, six at the most. I slowed as I approached the section of row housing where she lived, my eyes scanning the area, searching for any sign of Emily or anything out of the ordinary, anything at all.
And then I saw him, coming down the steps from Emily’s front door, looking behind him as he pulled Emily along behind him, his arm on her’s, her head turning to look up and down the street, a terrified look on her face. I wasn’t sure if she saw me, but thankfully she made no indication of it if she did. She just continued to move down the steps, following Demario to his car as he led her along.
I’d whipped into an open spot behind the row of parked cars along Emily’s street as soon as I’d seen Demario come out the door, killing the engine with a flick of the kill switch as I did so. I didn’t want him to see me. This was not the time or the place to engage him, especially considering he now had Emily.
God, I’d made a serious error in judgment on this one!
I thought I had more time to deal with him, but I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong as I watched Demario escort Emily into the passenger seat of his car before walking around to the driver’s side and taking his seat behind the wheel.
As Demario’s car pulled away, I waited a moment before hitting the ignition switch on the Ninja. I wanted to be sure he couldn’t hear the throaty growl of the bike’s exhaust. I wasn’t taking any more chances with Emily. I had to play this right, no screwups. I had to get Emily back.
I pulled away from the curb, driving slowly now, no
t wanting to attract attention, hoping I didn’t have any cops cruising around looking for me after the way I drove over here.
Demario was just cruising along, taking his time, driving normally, blending into traffic. To the outside world he was just another guy, driving along with his wife or girlfriend in the car, on his way to somewhere, just like everybody else. To me, he was a dead man.
I kept several cars between us, not wanting to alert him that he was being followed. Sometimes that’s the problem with bikes. Depending on who you’re talking about, they get noticed. A lot of people don’t even seen them, which is why they tend to cut them off or almost run into them, but other people notice them because they are bikes and they have a certain appeal.
The other thing I was keeping in mind was that I could still track Demario from my iPhone, so I didn’t need to maintain a visual on him to know where he was going. Of course my mind knew that, but my heart didn’t seem to be getting the message. It was still not wanting to let Demario’s car, and Emily who was trapped inside of it, out of my sight.
After a few minutes of driving, I dropped back another couple of cars, still able to see Demario’s car and in a better position now to not be seen myself. My tactical sense seemed to be taking over, suppressing the emotional side, which was good because I needed to be operating at one hundred percent.
Another couple of blocks and another couple of turns, and I found myself smiling in my helmet as I realized where he was going. Demario was a creature of habit it seemed, and he seemed to really like his Delta habit. I was willing to bet that was where he was heading now.
This was good. The Delta was a known location to me, and it gave me options. I continued to follow him for another few blocks, and after another turn, I could just make out the top of the Delta Hotel amongst the buildings in the distance.
Now I needed a plan. How was I going to play this?
I turned right at the next corner, letting Demario continue on ahead, and accelerated hard down the street, making a left when I reached the next corner. I was running parallel to Demario now, one street over, which would take me to the rear of the Delta, where the entrance to the underground parking garage that Demario would be coming in through was.
I drove down the ramp and into the garage, taking in the surroundings, my mind racing to come up with a plan. Not far off the ramp, there were two handicapped parking spots that were open, and I steered the Ninja into one of them, turned it around, and sat there with the engine running, waiting. It was like there was a big clock staring at me in my head, the second hand ticking away. Slowly. Tick. Tick. Tick.
And then I heard an engine, tires on the ramp, and Demario’s car was going past me, the image of Emily in the passenger seat almost surreal as she went by. I put the Ninja in gear and pulled out slowly, following him into the parking garage from a couple of car lengths back. We circled down the ramp, around a corner, and down the next ramp, Demario obviously knowing where he was going as we went deeper into the garage.
It was dark in the shadows, in the corner and in the edges where the overhead fluorescent lighting didn’t penetrate, but the main ramps were well lit, as were most of the parking spots. We went down another ramp, and another, the parking lot mostly empty now as we rolled along.
Finally Demario turned into a spot, probably where he usually parked when he came to the Delta, further in the back, in a corner that wasn’t too far from one of the access doors to the stairs and the elevators.
I drove past him as he pulled in, down a few spots past the door, and then pulled into a spot. I could hear a car door slam as I slid the kickstand down and got off the bike, followed by footsteps, faint but distinct, echoing in the silence as Demario walked around to the passenger side of the car.
I moved quickly to the cement wall that framed the entrance to the stairs and elevators, no sound coming from my boots as I did so. At the corner, I moved my head out just enough to get a quick look, and there was Demario coming around the car with Emily in tow. She was looking around as they walked, her eyes wide with fright, probably hoping to see some sign that I was there, especially if she’d seen me back at her place when they were coming down the steps.
When they were around the car and heading for the door, I stepped casually out from behind the wall, walking normally, as if I was just another person who was heading to the stairs to go into the hotel. Demario glanced at me, and then looked back at Emily, giving her a tug on the arm as if she wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking.
I unfastened my helmet as I walked, taking it off and shaking my hair out as we approached each other on the way to the door.
Demario looked at me again, but I could see in his eyes that he’d dismissed any wariness he might have had about me being a threat once he saw that I was a girl. Men are like that, and guys like Demario, guys who think they’re real tough guys, even more so.
I smiled at him, keeping my eyes purposely away from Emily’s, not wanting any chance for him to see anything there if I met her gaze. I doubted a neanderthal like Demario was smart enough to read subtle signs like that, but then again, sometimes the subconscious sees things that the brain doesn’t. It didn’t matter anyway. Demario’s ego kicked in, and he smiled back at me, probably thinking he could’ve picked me up if he didn’t have Emily in tow.
Ego kicked in again, and Demario reached forward to pull the door open, presumably to hold it for me, some ingrained, old school sense of chivalry still working in his demented head. As he moved to grab the door handle, I pulled my combat knife from inside my boot and sank it deep into his back in one swift movement, pulling up and inward as I did so. There was no sound as I pulled it back out and plunged it in again, pulled it out, and plunged it back in once more for good measure. The blood groove on the knife prevented any suction lock that might have occurred without it, making the whole event virtually silent.
Demario’s head turned as his legs started to give out beneath him. The look of surprise on his face was satisfying as his hand slid from Emily’s arm, following his body to the floor. I stood over him as he lay there, blood beginning to pool around him as he bled out. His eyes stayed locked on mine, full of questions as the light in them started to dim, but he didn’t say a word, just stared at me as he laid there and died.
To her credit, Emily didn’t scream. She didn’t make a sound actually. I grabbed her by the arm, breaking her fixation on Demario lying there on the floor.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so,” she replied, her gaze working it’s way over her body as if she wasn’t sure.
“He didn’t hurt you?”
“No. Just scared the crap out of me. He was nuts. It was like he thought we were going out on a date or something. Totally lost his grip on reality. I was just terrified of what he was going to do.”
She was shivering as we spoke, as if her body was trying to physically shake off the fright she’d felt. I’d been worried she was going to start losing control once the reality of what I’d done to Demario sunk in, but that didn’t seem to be happening. If anything, all I saw was relief. She was handling it just fine.
I looked around, confirming that we were still alone in the garage. Demario had unknowingly done me a favor by coming down to the lower levels where there were hardly any cars parked, although I couldn’t rely on that for long. Someone could step out of the elevator any minute, and the situation would go sideways on me very fast.
My mind raced with what to do with Demario. He was going to be a bitch to move. Dead weight always is. And then there was the blood. He’d bled out a lot, which was understandable considering I’d opened him up pretty good, puncturing his heart at least twice if not all three times I’d stabbed him. It would be hard to move him without getting blood all over the place, myself included, and I didn’t have anything to clean up the scene with either.
No. Best to just leave him where he was and get out of there. It actually wasn’t a bad thing because it looked pretty much
like it was, a mob guy got stabbed in the lower levels of a parking garage after getting out of his car. Pretty much what I was aiming for in the first place. I didn’t have any evidence to plant to support the idea that it was a mob hit, but then it probably wasn’t that necessary anyway. I imagined they’d jump to that conclusion pretty quick regardless.
I hurried over to Demario’s car and looked inside, checking to see if there was anything of Emily’s in there, anything at all that might clue someone in to the fact that he hadn’t been alone when he’d arrived. There was nothing that I could see. I walked back over to Emily.
“Did you have anything else with you when Demario took you from your place?” I asked.
“No, nothing else,” Emily replied. The shivering had stopped, and she was looking more like her old self. “What are you going to do with him?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “I’m going to leave him right where he is, and you and I are going to get the hell out of here right now. With any luck, his people will think this was a mob hit, one of the other families taking him out for one reason or another.”
Emily looked back down at Demario where he lay on the ground and nodded as if she thought that sounded good.
The only problem I had now was that we needed to leave immediately, and I only had one helmet. I pulled a baseball hat out from inside the shoulder of my leather coat and handed it to Emily.
“Put this on backwards so it doesn’t blow off. I don’t have another helmet, but this will disguise you a little. Tuck your hair up under it as best you can, hold onto me tight when we leave and keep your face buried as far down as you can into my shoulder. I want to minimize the chance of anyone seeing you and remembering what you look, at least as much as possible.”
Emily nodded and put the hat on her head, tucking her hair up under it as she did so. It wasn’t perfect, but combined with her keeping her head down and behind me, I figured it was unlikely anyone would get a good look at her. I walked over to the Ninja, backed it out, and signaled Emily to get on behind me.
TEENAGE ASSASSIN: Episodes 1 to 4 *** ONLY $0.99 FOR THE HOLIDAYS - REG $3.99!!! *** Page 11
