Taking Flight (A Devereux Novel)

by Whiskey, D. G.

  It was confusing. Derek had expected to hear about an assault like his own. Was it possible Gary had just tripped and fallen? But if it had been anything more than that, his friends would have seen something happen. It was a big coincidence, but could it be anything else?

  “You’re sure you just tripped? What did you trip over?” Derek asked.

  “I didn’t see, to be honest. But it could have just been me being clumsy. We had a few drinks, so it’s possible I was less graceful than I’d like to admit.” Gary reached his hand out to touch Derek’s arm. “Seriously. Derek. I’m fine. It was an accident, a goof. No big deal.”

  “No big deal,” Derek repeated. Why did it feel like it was?

  “You are so hot for him, and you won’t even admit it—that’s the sad part,” Becky said as they walked up the stairs to the second floor of their building. “And he’s totally digging you, too. If you were just honest with each other you could have freakin’ boned already. It’s driving me nuts and I won’t even get to join in!”

  “Oh, come on, Becky. Some of us don’t view sex as the end-all and be-all of a relationship, you know,” Sara said. “Speaking of, though, what did you get Gary’s number for? Did you soften him up to your advances during the drive to the restaurant?”

  Becky stuck her tongue out at her friend. “A lady never reveals her secrets. I’m afraid you’re just not going to know about that one.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Sara said. “You’ll spill the beans at the earliest possible opportunity. You couldn’t keep a secret if your life depending on it.”

  As she reached the front door, Becky dug around for her keys, but then she stopped dead and they crashed to the ground, fallen from nerveless fingers.

  “Becky, what—?” Sara cut herself off as she saw what had given her roommate pause.

  The front door was ajar. More than that, the deadbolt had been torn away from the door frame, as though an impossibly strong beast had sunk its claws into the metal and ripped it away like tin foil.

  “Oh my God,” Becky said in a breathless whisper. She pushed the door with a finger, and the portal swung inward.

  The room beyond was devastated. The fridge had been knocked over and the contents spread across the floor like the guts of a dying animal. The table had been overturned and broken into pieces. Things from their bedrooms were slashed and left strewn everywhere. Sara recognized the tattered remains of the dress she had worn the other night.

  “No, no, no!” Becky launched into the apartment toward her room. Sara reached for her, but missed.

  “Beck! We don’t know if they’re still here!” Sara swore as her roommate charged ahead.

  She grabbed a knife from the block on the counter and held it in front of her with shaking hands as she crept through the apartment. Wails of distress came from Becky’s room, so she assumed it was clear. It was a small place, all the paper would pay for, so it didn’t take long to look through and confirm they were alone. Still, she wasn’t willing to lay the knife down yet. The door couldn’t lock any longer, and even if it could it wouldn’t stop whoever did this.

  Satisfied that at least they were by themselves, Sara assessed the damage. The first thing she saw was her laptop, screen smashed and electronics pulled apart. It lay on the ground, a sad victim of the intruder’s fury.

  “Oh, fuck.” Sara knelt down to pick it up. All her notes were on that computer, and while she’d backed some of them up to the cloud, more than a few would be lost forever if she couldn’t recover the data. At least there were specialists for that.

  When she picked up the wretched thing, it wasn’t hard to see it was a lost cause. The hard drive had been ripped out, and it was impossible to recover files if even the twisted remnants weren’t available.

  “Beck?” She called, desperate for the sound of her roommate’s voice. “Talk to me.”

  The sobbing grew louder. There were a few mangled attempts at what might have been words, but she couldn’t make sense of any of it from out in the kitchen. She went back into her friend’s bedroom and winced.

  It looked like someone had taken all of her friend’s clothes, the product of her hard work over the past few years, put them in a blender, and turned it on high. The floor was a complete mess, and aside from the odd memorable piece of fabric here or there, Sara couldn’t make sense of it at all. It held a strange beauty, like it belonged to a modern art exhibit, but the flood of fabric would forever be useless as clothing.

  “Oh, Beck.” Sara said nothing more. She couldn’t. What else was there to say? She simply took her friend in her arms and held her as the crying continued.

  They stood like that for a long time, in the middle of the desolate remains of Becky’s hard work. Her sobs slowed down, until she shuddered now and then with suppressed emotion. The clothes had been like family to her, children she’d created out of her own blood, sweat and tears.

  “Are you going to be okay?” It was a brutal question, but there wasn’t another good way to start the conversation.

  Becky drew back, her face red, blotched, and tear-stained. She sniffed. “I don’t know, Sara. I mean, I can make more clothes. But these… these were the blueprints of my future success. These were golden, and they could have taken me to the top. Now, they’re just scrap fabric, good for nothing except stuffing rag bags.”

  “Hey, that’s not true,” Sara said. “You still have all the experience, the wisdom, the learning from making those dresses and shirts. You know how to do it again, but better this time. Don’t let this cripple your dreams.”

  Her roommate gave her a shaky grin. “Oh, cool it, Sara. You are way too confident in me. Despite my perpetual lack of success.”

  “Don’t let success be defined by other people,” she said. “You are a success to me.”

  Becky drew her in for one more sharp hug, and then they separated.

  “What are we going to do now? Where do we go?”

  “Well,” Sara said, “I don’t know if it’s the best idea, but I’ll call Derek and ask him if we can crash at his place. He’s got the room, and we need something quick. It should be a lot safer.”

  “Safe. Safe sounds good right about now.” Becky’s eyes widened as she moved past the sheer shock of the situation and thought about what had happened. “Sara! Who did this? This wasn’t just a B and E. This was a personal attack on us and our stuff. They didn’t even steal anything. They just destroyed everything. Someone targeted us.”

  Sara wished it hadn’t come to this point. She regretted not telling Becky the truth about the dent in their front door. She shuddered to think what might have happened if one or both of them had been home when the attacker come after the apartment.

  “This is my fault, Beck. I’m so sorry. It was me and this stupid investigation. I know it. They made a threat before, but I hadn’t wanted to believe they would do anything about it. I can’t believe how wrong I was.”

  Becky’s eyes grew large and round. “You knew? You knew there was a madman out there who might try to hurt us, and you said nothing?”

  “Beck, I’m sorry. Please, you know that I wouldn’t do anything to put you into harm’s way. I thought I had things under control.” Sara’s own eyes teared up. The prospect of losing her friend over this was much worse than losing her research. “Can you forgive me?”

  “Call Derek,” Becky said, her voice cold. “I won’t stay upset at you forever, but I can’t forgive you on the spot, Sara. What if I had been home, and you had been out with Derek having a great time, unaware it was me getting torn to shreds just like these?” She leaned down and picked up a handful of torn fabric. She threw it in the air to underscore her point, the bits of material fluttering to the ground. “You need to respect me enough to tell me about something that could have killed me. Still could, if we don’t get the hell out of here before he comes back.”

  Sara lapsed into silence. Becky was right, it was inexcusable to keep her in the dark after the knife had appeared in their front door. I
nstead she dialed Derek, praying he would answer. She got concerned on the fourth ring, but finally it connected.

  “Sara?”

  “Hey, Derek. Remember how we said it was a little too soon to talk about moving in together? Can we reconsider that?”

  If Derek had thought it had been a long day the last time he’d gotten home, it was nothing compared to how he felt after getting back from the hospital. He kicked aside the duffel bag he had dropped earlier to help clear the path for Gary, who had to angle himself sideways to fit the massive cast and crutches through the door.

  “My armpits hurt!” Gary said. He stood in the foyer on his good leg and shook his arms, trying to work off the pain from the crutches jabbing into his side. “I paid enough for these things, you’d think they would be at least a little more comfortable.”

  “First rule of falling down stairs and making an ass of yourself: the result won’t be comfortable,” Derek said. “If I have to put up with your whining for too long, I may ship you off to Boston. Or better yet, off to whatever country Stephen’s in so you can bug the hell out of him. He deserves it.”

  “Whatever,” Gary said. “What time are the girls getting here?”

  They had been on the way home when Derek received Sara’s call. He’d been shocked and outraged at the attack on her home. It was one thing for people to target him, but to go after a woman he was seeing just because they thought it might get to him was unacceptable. He had offered to drive over and pick them up, but Sara had refused, pointing out she knew where he lived and they needed to bring their car with them. They wouldn’t just leave it behind. He’d conceded the point, although he itched to help.

  “I’m not sure. As soon as they could manage it. I’ll call in five minutes if I don’t hear from them.” Derek and Gary shared a look. Driving had been the method of assault when he was almost killed the first time. “This begs the question, again. Are you absolutely sure your accident couldn’t have been caused by anyone else? Did you really trip over your own feet?”

  Gary thought for a moment. “I don’t know, Derek. It happened so fast, it was such a blur. And then with the broken leg, the pain just about knocked me out. My brain had a lot to worry about in the moment. It wasn’t busy keeping a crystal clear memory of what happened. Plus, I had been drinking a little, so that doesn’t help one bit.”

  It would remain a mystery for now, but Derek committed himself to finding out which of Gary’s friends were there so he could question them about what they remembered. It was possible one of them had been bribed to push Gary down the stairs, or saw something that explained it. Even with a few drinks, Derek didn’t believe his brother could fall over himself like that.

  An odd, multi-toned chime sounded over their heads, and Derek had to puzzle out what it was for a few seconds before he remembered it was his door bell. Only his closest acquaintances knew the code to his gate, and they knew enough to just walk in when they dropped by, so he rarely heard it.

  He opened the door to the two women. Becky’s face was liberally streaked with tears, and Sara’s weren’t completely normal either. The two women were quiet, subdued, as though they had spent the whole drive over in silence.

  “Please, come in,” he said. They had no luggage with them. “Didn’t bring your stuff with you? Did the police tell you to leave it there as evidence?”

  “Hardly,” Becky said. “It’s all destroyed. The only things still in good enough shape to take weren’t worth it. Even the tube of toothpaste got sliced open and squeezed out. It’s like whoever did it wanted us to have nothing.”

  She looked at him with an accusatory glare that caught Derek by surprise. Did she know the attack was his fault? If he hadn’t expressed an interest in Sara, it wouldn’t have happened at all. Did she figure it out on her own, or had Sara told her about the attacker in the alley the other night?

  Sara walked up to him and threw her arms around his shoulders. His hands came up automatically to her lower back, holding her against him. She felt warm, soft. Right. He had to remind himself not to let his hands wander—it was not the time for that.

  “Thank you for having us,” she mumbled. “I didn’t trust a hotel or anything else. If they tracked me to that apartment, who’s to say they couldn’t do it again? At least you have a gate here, and a secured community. It feels safer, although who knows what they’re capable of. Maybe nowhere’s safe.”

  Maybe nowhere’s safe. He’d had the same thought himself, and it was chilling. If he couldn’t even trust the security at his own house, what could he do against this unknown threat? He still didn’t know who was responsible for this mayhem or what they wanted. They’d made no demands of him, no requests for money, no ransom, nothing. They attacked and destroyed and left no hint of what their goal was.

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine here,” Derek said, trying to inject confidence into his voice he didn’t feel. He loved to live on the edge, but this was a different story. When he hunted that fine line between exhilaration and ruin, he was always the one in control, the one who decided how close he got to oblivion. This experience had given him a taste of being in someone else’s power, and he didn’t like it one bit. He hadn’t felt like this since experiencing the iron control of his father while growing up.

  “Thanks,” Sara said. Her face lifted as she looked into his eyes, and he wanted to kiss her.

  She backed away, and the moment was lost. Derek felt like a piece of him was incomplete.

  Becky had wandered to the living room and discovered Gary, who had settled himself into a big recliner and tried to find a comfortable position for his leg.

  “Oh my God, Gary, what happened?”

  He’d forgotten in the confusion of the phone call with Sara to tell them where he was or what he had been doing.

  “Gary?” Sara asked. “Something happened to Gary? I didn’t even expect him to be here yet. I thought he was out with friends tonight.”

  She left his arms to head back into the living room, leaving Derek to trail after. He admired her stance, head still held high, back straight, facing the world head-on. Her strength and resilience made it easier for him to keep his composure. Perhaps already going through the worst experience of her life meant that she could keep these other crises in perspective.

  Gary was explaining his story to Becky and included Sara in the conversation as she walked up. It was the same one that Derek had heard, but he smiled when he noticed his little brother changed the facts a bit, making it seem less his fault and more an unavoidable accident thrust upon him. There was nothing like a pretty face to change your tune and give you an incentive to cast your past in a more favorable light.

  Or had he changed his story for me?

  The thought gave Derek pause. Gary hadn’t wanted him to worry, that much was certain.

  “If you don’t mind, Derek, I’ll just sleep down here tonight,” Gary said. “The thought of climbing the stairs to a bedroom is atrocious with this cast, and this chair is cozy.”

  “Whatever you need. Ladies, we should let Gary rest,” Derek said. “It’s gotten late, and his leg will need plenty of sleep to heal. Do you need anything, Gare? Water, food, blanket?”

  “Maybe a glass of water, please,” Gary said. “These painkillers should keep me out all night, but it would be nice not to have to get up if I need one later.”

  Sara rolled over. Sleep didn’t come easily, and she didn’t know if it was the events of the day, the strange bed, or that Derek Devereux slept on the other side of the wall.

  He had graciously showed Becky and Sara to their rooms. Becky had gotten a guest suite on the second floor, while Derek had put Sara into the room just beside his, on the third floor. She had been queasy climbing the stairs, especially when she’d gotten to the top and realized the hallway was open to the huge living room and the view of the ocean on one side, with only a balcony separating her from the big drop. There was a little seating area for anyone so inclined to enjoy the view, but Sara hadn’t s
tuck around to soak it in, retreating into her room.

  Derek is sleeping right there. I wonder if he wears a suit to bed. She chuckled a little at the image of him lying down in one of his tailored suits, crinkling the fabric out of an utter refusal to be less than impressively dressed. Ugh, this is awful. Her eyes burned from the lack of sleep, but she couldn’t stop her mind from running at a mile a minute.

  Finally, she rolled out of bed. She hadn’t brought any clothes with her, not finding anything salvageable. The thought that the intruder had picked through all her things—including her underwear and lingerie—to make sure she wouldn’t have use of any of it ever again was maddening. They’d seen her most intimate things, from the sexy negligee she had been tempted to wear for Derek to the granny panties she used when she wasn’t feeling right with the world.

  She still wore the underwear from that day, and Derek had loaned her a shirt to wear over top when she’d asked. It hung down low, the shirttail just covering her butt and the front covering her upper thighs. The sleeves had shot past her hands, and she’d had to roll them up to avoid looking like a kid trying on her father’s clothes.

  Sara didn’t know what she was doing, but she couldn’t spend any longer lying in bed and staring up at the murky ceiling. Her memories played across the empty expanse like a video on loop. She saw the state of the apartment when she had first walked in—the torn, shredded remnants of their things. When she finally pushed the images out of her mind, they were replaced with memories of the attack on Derek in the alley. These things were more than she had bargained for when she’d come to Los Angeles, and she was afraid of how things might escalate from here.