Standing in the Shadows

by Shannon McKenna

  “That’s just tough!” she shot back. “You scared me to death! Now deal with the consequences!”

  He glanced at Sean and Davy. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. We can hunt down Billy some other time.”

  Sean turned to address the crowd of gawkers gathering around them. “Public service announcement, everybody! The cops will be here any minute, so start thinking about your witness statements now!”

  The crowd melted away like magic.

  The back door of the Cadillac was open, and Barbara Riggs was half in, half out, eyes frozen wide. He handed her his cane. “Would you throw that into the back window for me, Mrs. Riggs?” he asked. “Let’s get going. I’m sure you want to get Cindy home.”

  He got into the car, and waited for the back door to swing shut. It did not. He followed Erin’s startled gaze, and jerked his head around.

  Barbara Riggs was marching across the parking lot, clutching his cane like a club. The evening, which could never have been called normal to begin with, was about to take a turn for the seriously weird.

  “Which car is Billy’s?” Barbara demanded.

  Miles daubed at the fresh flow of blood from his nose with his gory sleeve and pointed across the lot, to where a low-slung silver Jaguar glowed softly in the dark, like a phosphorescent sea creature.

  Connor ran to stop her, but it was too late. She lifted his cane high over her head and whipped it down over the Jag’s windshield with admirable force. The glass crunched and sagged. Fault lines shivered through the entire gleaming surface. Crash, a blow to the other side of the windshield. Smash, out went the right headlight; crash, tinkle, there went the left. Driver’s side window, smash. She whipped the cane down and managed to make a pretty decent dent in the roof. The white purse dangled and swung over her arm with each movement.

  There was an awful, ponderous inevitability to it, like watching a wrecking ball taking down a brick building. She was drawing another crowd, too. It wasn’t every day that you saw a middle-aged lady in a pale pink pantsuit bashing a hundred-thousand-dollar car to garbage.

  “What’s her problem?” a big, swag-bellied biker type asked him.

  Connor shrugged helplessly. “He owes her money.”

  Pop, crash, crunch, the mayhem went on and on, until Erin’s anxious voice penetrated the noise. “Mom? Mom! Listen to me, Mom!”

  Barbara looked up, tears streaming down her face. “That son of a bitch hit my baby!”

  “I know he did, Mom, but she’s going to be OK. And the guys beat him up for you already, didn’t you see?”

  “Good,” Barbara said viciously. Erin winced and covered her ears as the cane whistled down and shattered the back window. She put her arms around her mother’s shoulders and hurried her back toward the car. Barbara went along without argument, the forgotten cane dragging behind her. The black rubber tip bumped over the asphalt.

  Miles grinned through his gore. “You’re a goddess, Mrs. Riggs!”

  “I’m sure this is all very therapeutic, but can we leave?” Sean asked.

  “Yeah, let’s move. You and Miles come to my house,” Davy said. “We need to clean that kid up. Hey, Con. I slipped one of Seth’s beacons into Billy’s cigarettes while your mother-in-law was trashing the Jag. We can track him down tomorrow, so take it easy tonight. If you can.” Davy’s sympathetic eyes flicked over to Connor’s car, packed chock full of problematic Riggs females. “Good luck with them. And watch your back with Erin’s mom. The woman is not to be fucked with.”

  “Yeah. Believe me, I’ve noticed,” Connor grumbled.

  This time Connor pried the cane out of Barbara’s clammy grip with his own hands, closed the car door on her, and threw the cane into the trunk where it could do no more damage. He pulled the car out onto the street and braced himself for absolutely anything.

  “Mom?” Cindy quavered. “Are you wigging out on me?”

  Barbara pulled Cindy into her arms. “Oh, no, baby. Not at all.”

  “I think you’re going to be just fine, Mrs. Riggs,” he said. “You certainly seem to have no problems expressing your anger.”

  Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. “You’d better start calling me Barbara, Connor,” she said coolly. “I might as well get used to it.”

  “Gee. Thanks so much,” he muttered.

  “I really do feel much better,” Barbara said, in a wondering voice. “Better than I have in ages.”

  “Oh, sure you do,” Connor grunted. “Nothing like a little reckless destruction of private property to brighten up your mood.”

  Barbara blinked rapidly. “Oh, my. Do you think he might prosecute me? Oh dear. Wouldn’t that be funny? If I had to send Eddie a letter…sorry, honey, but I can’t make it in to see you on visiting day…I’m in jail, too! I’m a p-p-public menace!”

  “That’s not funny, Mom.” Erin’s voice sounded strangled.

  “I know it’s not, sweetie pie. So why are we laughing?”

  All three of the women started laughing. Then they started bawling. Then it was a terrible mess. Connor just kept his head down, and his mouth shut, and drove the goddamn car.

  This contract made Rolf Hauer very uneasy.

  There was nothing wrong with the business end of things. The pay was excellent, the contact had been discreet and professional, the down payment had been delivered to Marseilles in American dollars, as promised. No problems at all there. Everything was in perfect order.

  It was the details of this hit that bothered him. A list of nitpicking, grisly details, any of which, if not followed to the letter, rendered the contract null and void. Rolf prided himself on his professionalism, but if there was one thing this business had taught him, it was that there were always surprises. An artist needed room to improvise. There was no room in this job for improvisation. This one was skintight.

  So was his hiding place in the goddamn garage closet. He’d been here for hours, and he was stiff and bored. He glanced at his watch. The targets should be arriving soon, if things went as the contact had assured him that they would. The explosives were in place. The list of instructions had the feel of a code. Not that he wanted to decipher it. The less he knew, the happier he was. He was only a pen, writing a message with fire and blood. He was paid to keep that ink flowing.

  Ah, at last. The garage door rumbled up. Headlights glared into the garage under the secluded house. Adrenaline squirted into Rolf’s body. He shifted into combat readiness, cracked the closet door, peered out. In his black ski mask, he was just another shadow in the dark.

  The door of the van cracked open. Voices. A light flipped on. A man turned around, tall, round-shouldered, wearing a felt cap. He lit a cigarette. Yes. Double chin, big nose. Matthieu Rousse. His first target.

  The passenger door opened, and a big, chunky woman got out. Helmet of gray hair. He didn’t even need her to step into the light to identify that big jaw. She was the second target, Ingrid Nagy. She said something sharp to the man, in a guttural language Rolf didn’t recognize. The man replied, sulkily, dropped his cigarette, and crushed it out. They went to the back of the Volvo van and opened the doors.

  Rousse reappeared, carrying a limp, blanket-wrapped figure in his arms. Rolf caught sight of a slack, sallow face, balding brown hair. Target number three, the comatose man with no name.

  Rousse carried him easily. The inert figure was as slight as a boy. Rolf watched silently as Nagy grabbed a metal valise and followed Rousse and Coma Boy into the house, bitching all the way.

  He slithered up the stairs after them, toward what he knew was the kitchen, from his recon earlier that evening. Nagy was getting further, her scolding voice receding up the stairs. A woman chewing a man out sounded pretty much the same in any language, poor bastard. But pity was wasted on him. His pain was at an end.

  Rousse was clattering down the stairs, probably heading back to the garage to get more gear from the van. The door at the top of the stairs burst open. Rousse didn’t even have time to speak; just a surprised wid
ening of the eyes, pop, pop, pop with the silenced Glock, and down he went. Thud. Eyes still open, in eternal surprise.

  Nagy was still yelling from the upstairs. She wasn’t moving toward him yet, but since Rousse wasn’t going to respond any time soon, she would get pissed off and come looking for him soon enough. He followed her shrill voice up the stairs, toward the lit-up door at the end of the corridor. She charged out the door, and he took her out before she even finished winding up for her bellow of rage. Pop, pop. Dead before she saw him. That was how he liked it. So far, so good.

  Now came the weird part. The part that made his flesh creep.

  He walked into the room and stared down at Coma Boy. The open valise beside him was full of medical supplies. A plastic bag of glucose and what all lay beside him. A hypodermic needle. She must’ve been yelling for Rousse to bring her the IV rack. Coma Boy lay there, his head dropped to the side, mouth open, limp and helpless.

  Rolf had been ordered to remove the plastic-coated adult diaper, to take the valise, needles, IV rack, stretcher, all evidence that Coma Boy was not a normal, healthy person. If any scrap were left, the contract was void. He did as he was instructed, glad of his leather gloves. Touching the man’s limp body made his gorge rise. He searched through Nagy’s pockets to make sure there were no clues there, bundled everything back in the valise, hauled it all back to the garage. The Volvo was full of machines to hook up to Coma Boy. He would dispose of them later.

  He went back upstairs, stepping over Rousse and Nagy, and pulled out a knife to attend to the final details. His hand stopped.

  Rolf was surprised at himself. Coma Boy wasn’t going to weep and beg for mercy. Rolf would’ve almost preferred it if he had. It would’ve given him something to push against. It would’ve made sense.

  This creature, so utterly passive, baffled him. Weakened him.

  Rolf steeled himself, and used a trick that he’d thought he would never need again. He divided himself. There was a part of him that did not mind slicing off the first joint of Coma Boy’s right index finger, and then the ring and pinky finger of the same hand. He’d been given a diagram explaining exactly how much of each finger to cut. He’d studied it carefully. Part of him did not balk at putting a bullet in Coma Boy’s brain, and five more in his chest. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. That strong part of him squeezed the trigger. The other part of him shrank away, like a snail into its shell.

  He gathered up the fingers, put them in a plastic freezer bag he’d put in his pocket for that purpose. He tucked the bag into his jacket. He pulled out the small bottle of accelerant, and soaked the body with it.

  The hard part was over. Now for the mopping up.

  Rolf pulled up his rented vehicle from the hiding place in the shrubs, and got to work on the van. Not one scrap of medical equipment left in it, or the contract was void. He packed the machines and boxes and medicines into his own vehicle, and examined the Volvo inside and out with his flashlight. Clean and nice. He was done here.

  Now the part he was looking forward to. He pulled away to a safe distance, took a deep breath, and pushed the detonator.

  The house exploded. Rolf watched the expansion, the slow-motion fall of blazing debris, the licking flames, with dumb relief. Fire purified.

  He drove to the cliff top he’d chosen the day before. The sea heaved and crashed below. He pitched the materials he had taken over the cliff. He threw the bloody Ziploc bag and its contents.

  The terms of the contract were satisfied. But he didn’t get into his car and drive away immediately, as he should have done. He stared out at the sea, thinking about what he had done. Always a mistake. He was a man of action. Not reflection.

  All things considered, it was good that the pay was so high. Because after tonight, he was ready for a long vacation, someplace very far from here. The sky had begun to lighten before Rolf got into his car and headed back toward Marseilles.

  Chapter

  19

  Erin was still buzzing with nervous energy hours later. It had been a long, trying evening. Her mother had insisted on taking Cindy to the emergency room, where the doctor had checked Cindy out, asked several probing questions, and sent them home with much the same advice as Sable had given to Erin: make Cindy drink a lot of water, sleep it off, and stay the hell away from whoever had gotten her into that condition. And drug counseling went without saying.

  Mom and Cindy were finally asleep, in Mom’s bedroom. Mom had pointedly not invited Connor to stay in the guest bedroom. He’d gotten the hint, and was outside in his car. She leaned against her bedroom window. The fog circle of her breath widened and shrank as she stared at the Cadillac parked outside. Banished from the house, and still he stuck by her, to guard her while she slept. So stubborn and gallant and sweet. Just thinking about it touched off that melting feeling again. She fought it down for fear she would start crying. She’d bawled all evening with Mom and Cindy. She was tired of it. Her sob muscles hurt.

  She missed Connor. She started to pull on her jeans, and then looked down at her thin gauze summer nightgown with the embroidered pink flowers. She thought of his reaction to her baggy Victorian nightdress. “A calculated cocktease,” he’d called it.

  Hmm. Well, then. She would just have to see if he liked the skimpier version just as well. No one was awake to see but him.

  She crept barefoot down the stairs, disarmed the alarm, and stepped out onto the porch. The night breeze was damp and chilly, whipping the thin fabric around her thighs. She felt Connor’s eyes lock onto hers, through the car window, across the dark lawn. She was very conscious of her nipples, pressing against the thin fabric.

  Connor pushed the passenger side door open and beckoned to her. She ran across the dew-soaked grass and slid into the Cadillac, scooting over on the slippery leather seat to press herself against his warmth. Her feet were covered with clinging blades of grass.

  His arms went around her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing out here? You’re half naked!” His voice was sharp with outrage.

  “I wanted to show you my nightgown,” she said. “I wanted to see if you liked it.”

  “Oh, Christ.” He flung his head back against the seat. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “I just missed you, that’s all,” she said. “I was watching you from my bedroom window. My brave, noble knight in the shining Cadillac.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips, kissed it tenderly front and back, and then pressed it against the hard, thick length of his erection. “I like your nightgown, babe,” he said. “How noble is that?”

  She stroked him from base to tip. Her fingers tightened appreciatively around his thick shaft. “Oh, very noble, Connor. Very.”

  He covered her hand, held it still. “Don’t, Erin. That’s enough.”

  “Why not? Everyone’s asleep. Open your jeans for me and I’ll practice some of my bad girl skills. I’ve never done anything in a car before. Except for when you kissed me at the airport. That counts.”

  “I think it does, too. But still, no.”

  Her fingers tightened, rubbed him, insisting. “Don’t you want—”

  “You know damn well how much I want it, but I’m not comfortable letting down my guard in a car parked out on the street. I’m wide open when you do your sex goddess routine on me.”

  “So come up to my room.” She pressed her lips against his hot face, rubbed her cheek against the rasp of glinting beard stubble. “We’ll lock the doors, set the alarms. We’ll be as safe as it’s possible to be.”

  He clapped his hand over his eyes. “Yeah, right. That’d go over great with your mom. You saw what she did to that Jag.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’re no Billy Vega, and besides, she already likes you.” She rushed over his snort of derision. “My bedroom is in the attic, on the opposite side of the stairs from Mom’s bedroom. They’re asleep, Connor. They’re exhausted. No one will ever know.”

  “You are lethal, sweetheart,” he
whispered. “Like Eve in the garden. Come on, baby, just one little nibble. See how shiny the apple is? Yum, yum.”

  She rubbed against him so that her neckline gaped low. “The apple is juicy and sweet, Connor,” she said. “I promise, you’ll love it.”

  His hand slid up over her hip, her waist, and cupped her breast. She arched against him. “Come upstairs, and you can take this nightgown off me and make love to me, Connor. I never sneaked a boy into my childhood bedroom, ever. I need to make up for lost time.”

  “I’m not a boy, Erin,” he said. “I’m a man. That makes it different. That makes it kinky.”

  She cradled his face and kissed the frown line between his brows. “And I’m a woman,” she said quietly. “Which makes it OK.”

  He stared into her eyes for a long moment. “Tell me what your bedroom looks like.”

  The odd question disoriented her. “Why don’t you just come up and see for yourself?”

  “Just tell me, so I can see if it’s anything like my fantasies.”

  The longing in his voice silenced her, leaving her breathless. But only for a moment.

  “Um…the wallpaper has a pattern of pink rosebuds,” she began. “The bed is a maple four-poster, from my great-grandmother. There’s a double wedding ring quilt in a million different shades of pink. Beneath it there’s a dusty rose duvet. Dusty rose pillows with lace ruffles. There’s a braided rag rug on the parquet floor, like the one in my apartment, but this one is in shades of peach and cream and pink. There’s a washstand with a basin and pitcher. A maple dresser set and vanity, a matching armoire with beveled mirrors. Eyelet lace curtains. It’s a very pretty room. I’ve always loved it.”

  His eyes glittered like a wolf’s in the moonlight. “God, Erin. That just makes me want to explode.”

  She stifled a giggle. “Eyelet lace curtains turn you on?”

  “No. You turn me on. You, in the middle of all that fluffy chick stuff. Lace and rosebuds. I could come in my pants just thinking about it.”