Tilting at Windmills (Claire Lance)

by Geonn Cannon

  Garth brought his gun up, but Lance grabbed his wrist and kept the gun aimed at the ceiling. Pinning him to the bed with her legs, she sat up and punched him in the face. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, almost entirely red from her attempt to blind him. His lips were pulled back against his teeth in a fierce snarl. She punched him again as he fought to get the gun aimed at her. He brought his free hand up and blocked her blows.

  She knew she couldn't release his gun hand, so she head-butted him. Her skull rang with the impact, the second time she had done it in the past few minutes, and she wondered whether she had done more damage to herself than to Garth. But despite the stars dancing in front of her eyes, Garth's body went slack after the blow. Snatching the gun from his weakened hand, she got off of him. When she pushed him off the bed, his head cracked the nightstand as he fell limp to the floor.

  Lance stood catching her breath and looking at him, making sure he wasn't going to get up. When Garth stayed where he was, Lance held her hand out to Gwen. "Let's go," she said firmly.

  Gwen was trembling like a leaf as Lance pulled her up. "I heard fighting and I looked outside. I didn't see you. And then Garth came running out of that room. I was so scared."

  "It's all right," Lance said. "Let's go. We have to get out of here."

  Gwen grabbed the gun off the nightstand and handed it to Lance, who stuffed it absentmindedly into her belt as she started to gather their things.

  "I thought he was you, when he first came in," Gwen said. "I didn't...I thought he...I didn't have time..."

  "I know," Lance said. "It's okay." She grabbed her clothes off the radiator and crammed them back into her bag. She picked up Gwen's suitcase and shoved it into her arms. "Gwen, we don't have time for you to process it right now. Let's get on the road. Now." She put a hand on Gwen's shoulder and pushed her out of the room. When they were outside, she moved her hand to Gwen's arm, walked her to the passenger side door, and pushed her into the car.

  Lance rounded the front of the car just as Keating stumbled out of his motel room. His head was covered with blood, but his eyes were clear and bright. He was using the door to keep his balance as he brought his right hand up. Lance didn't have to see the gun to know it was there. She pulled the gun from her belt, brought it up and fired once. The entry wound didn't add much blood to his face, but the bullet splattered the door behind him on the way out. He went to his knees and collapsed in the doorway. Gwen screamed and ducked her head as Lance spun around to keep an eye on their own room in case Garth was as resilient as his friend.

  She only lowered the weapon when she was behind the wheel of the Pinto, putting the gun on the seat next to her and then backing out of the parking spot. By the time they reached the turn-out of the lot, other motel guests were coming out of their rooms and scanning the parking lot for the source of the ruckus they had heard. Certainly it couldn't have been a gunshot...

  In the distance, Lance heard sirens howling. Someone, probably several someones, had called the cops. Not wanting to draw undue attention to their car, Lance drove carefully until she reached the corner. She waited patiently at a stoplight and turned left. Once she was out of sight of the motel, she pressed the pedal to the floor and drove like a bat out of hell.

  #

  Two Oklahoma City Police cars sped past them with sirens blaring. Mallory half-turned in her seat to watch them drive by. "Must be something big," she said.

  "Mm-hmm," Lazareva said. She had mostly remained silent since Mallory had finished her story.

  Mallory looked at her. "Say what's on your mind, Ranger."

  Lazareva hesitated. She looked in the mirror and the post-rain sunshine caught her eyes, turning them golden. "You're going to kill Claire Lance when you find her, aren't you?"

  Mallory tensed and shook her head. "No. She's going to jail."

  "That's what you say now," Lazareva said. "You might even believe it. But come on, she's not going to just throw up her hands and say Ôya got me' and go peacefully. She's going to do her best to keep running. And when she turns her back on you and tries to leave, you're going to put a bullet in her back."

  Mallory shook her head but when she tried to deny the accusation out loud, she discovered she couldn't. She looked out the window instead. She had envisioned it so many times. Lance was usually coming at her with a weapon. During her waking hours, Mallory fantasized about slapping the cuffs on her sister's killer, walking into a police station somewhere and turning Lance over to rot for the rest of her life. But when she lay down to sleep at night, when the lights were out and her mind was wandering, she was always standing over Lance's dead body saying, "She gave me no choice."

  She looked at Lazareva. "Whatever happens, it won't come back on you. I appreciate your help with this, but I won't do anything that will hurt you."

  "You're damn right you won't," Lazareva said. "Everything that Claire Lance has done...killing your sister, killing Roy Morse...she's going to go down for it. She's going to pay. She doesn't deserve to get off easy with a bullet in her back."

  Mallory smiled weakly. "I thought all you Texans liked the death penalty."

  Lazareva shrugged and added a drawl to her voice. "Well, I ain't like most Texans."

  Mallory looked at her and smiled. "No. You're not."

  Lazareva kept looking forward and smiled through the windshield.

  #

  Three miles from the motel, Lance finally stopped running. Positioned at the backs of vacant parking lots, warehouses lined either side of the street. Tall chain-link fences topped with razor wire enclosed the properties. The rusted fences had suffered through several heavy storms and were sway-backed and falling apart. The Pinto's tires crushed empty beer bottles and brown paper bags as Lance pulled the car to the curb. She rested her elbows on the steering wheel and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.

  She could still see Garth's face clearly in front of her, the blood on his teeth and the pressure of his hands as Keating tried to choke her. If she had been a little slower, or reacted slightly differently, they would have overpowered her. She would have died, and Gwen would have been next.

  Lance leaned back against the seat and looked at Gwen. Gwen sat staring back at her, eyes wide. Lance wondered if she had blinked since Garth had come into the room and started trying to pull her out. She reached over and brushed a stray hair away from Gwen's eyelashes, and then let her hand linger against Gwen's forehead. Gwen looked so innocent, so dependent. Her eyes were bright and wide, deep enough to fall into. Lance felt the heat of her skin under her fingertips and her heart pounded. Her mind chanted, But Elaine...but Elaine... Reluctantly, she let it finish in a different way: But Elaine isn't here.

  Gwen was the first to move, but Lance slid her hands under Gwen's arms and pulled her the rest of the way. They kissed hard, hungrily, and their teeth knocked together as Lance settled Gwen in her lap. Gwen rearranged her position, spread her legs and sat down facing Lance. Her knees pressed into the seat on either side of Lance and their kiss deepened. Lance moved her hands down to the curve of Gwen's ass and squeezed through her dress.

  Lance pushed her tongue into Gwen's mouth and leaned forward so Gwen's back was against the steering wheel. Lance put her hands in the small of Gwen's back and kissed down her throat to the bodice of her dress. She pressed her lips to the small red-and-yellow flowers of the pattern, kissing Gwen's breast through the material as if she could taste the skin beneath the dress and the bra. Her hands moved to the hem of Gwen's dress and roughly shoved it up her thighs.

  Gwen reached down and pulled her dress out of the way, bumping her elbows on the roof of the sedan as she peeled it off. Lance roughly pushed Gwen's bra out of the way and sucked one hard nipple into her mouth.

  "Oh, God," Gwen sighed. Roy had always used his teeth on her nipples, biting and pinching. Lance was soft, using her lips and tongue to suckle her gently. Gwen tightened her thighs and thrust her hips against the rough material of Lance's jeans. For the first tim
e in her life, she wanted an orgasm. She wanted to finish, and at the same time, she wanted it to never end. Lance's hands on her, her mouth on her flesh were too good and it was not going to be enough to satisfy her. She rolled her shoulders back and reclined against the steering wheel as Lance kissed down her belly.

  Lance swirled her tongue in Gwen's navel and used her hands to explore the bared thighs. Then she sat up, stared Gwen in the eye, and cupped her panties with one hand. They looked into each other's eyes and Gwen whimpered her permission. Looking down, Lance pushed Gwen's panties aside. Her blond pubic hair was wet, untrimmed and wild. Lance slid her hand along Gwen's thigh until her fingers found the slick folds.

  Gwen's body shuddered and she pressed down on Lance's hand. "Ohh..."

  Lance pushed two fingers against her and Gwen's eyes squeezed tightly shut. She threw her head back and moved her hands down to guide Lance's movements. "God, that feels so good, Claire..."

  Lance bowed her head and kissed Gwen's breasts again. Gwen was more petite than Elaine, her breasts smaller and her nipples a bit darker. It was only then that Lance realized that, after meeting Elaine, she had judged all of her past lovers against her — one was taller than Elaine, another shorter than her, darker hair or narrower hips. And they all came up lacking. Elaine had been her only perfect lover, had fit perfectly against Lance's body. Lance pressed her face to Gwen's chest and cried, her fingers easing into Gwen's body.

  Gwen cradled Lance's head to her chest and rocked against her fingers. "It's okay. Shh. It's all right, darling."

  Lance squeezed her eyes shut and used her thumb to seek out Gwen's clit. She circled the hard bundle of nerves and Gwen thrust her hips forward. Gwen mewled and her fingers turned into talons on the back of Lance's head. "Oh. I think...I'm going...to come..."

  Lance kissed Gwen between the breasts and tasted the salty remnants of her tears. She pressed her tongue to the soft flesh and then kissed Gwen's neck as the other woman twitched with her orgasm. Soon the wave passed and Gwen's breathing grew steady.

  Lance wrapped her arms around Gwen and rested her head against her breasts, holding her tight as she came down off her climax. They held each other, stroking each other slowly, until Gwen finally put her hands on Lance's shoulders and gently pushed herself away.

  Gwen twisted and dropped back into her own seat. She shyly rearranged her underwear, found her dress hooked on the headrest of her seat and pulled it back on. She finger-combed her hair and looked out the window of the car, suddenly shy after what they'd done. Lance was slumped behind the wheel, looking down at her hands lying curled in her lap. Gwen reached over and pushed Lance's hair out of the way so she could see her face. She was surprised to see the hard-ass Claire Lance was crying. "Hey. It's all right."

  "It's not."

  "We almost died," Gwen said. "You're not a machine. It happens."

  Lance nodded. "Yeah. But it shouldn't have."

  "I'm glad it did. You made me come. That doesn't...hasn't happened a lot for me."

  Lance picked at her cuticle with her thumbnail and straightened in her seat. She twisted around to look out the back window and started the engine. "We should get moving before someone realizes which cars are missing from the motel parking lot."

  "Are we still going to the airport?"

  Lance shook her head. "Keating and Garth found us here. We have to assume the others know where we were going. The airport isn't safe for us anymore."

  "Well then, where can we go?"

  "Anywhere else," Lance said. She pulled away from the curb and started driving. After a few minutes, she said, "How do you feel about Colorado?"

  #

  Lazareva's truck was in a parking lot facing the highway. She and Mallory were sitting completely still, staring out the windshield and thinking about what they had just heard on the police-band radio. Units had responded to a crummy motel to find two men dead after an apparent brawl. Both men had been badly beaten and one had been finished off with a single shot to the head. One body had been found in the room registered to the two men, while the other was found in a different room registered to two women who had disappeared into thin air.

  It was the mention of the two women that caught Mallory's attention. Now they were trying to determine their next move. They had managed to overtake Lance and Gwen at some point, and now they were between their fugitive and the airport. Lazareva was willing to let Mallory call the play, but Mallory was focused on the actual news part of the story. "Who were the men?" she asked.

  Lazareva shrugged. "Maybe someone who recognized Lance from the paper."

  "No," Mallory said. She was reluctant to give Lance any kind of benefit of the doubt, but it didn't ring true. "A few months ago, in Ohio, a waitress in an all-night diner recognized Lance from a news report. She was alone in the diner with Lance and Lance heard her make the call, but she just ran. I don't think she would kill someone just for pointing their finger."

  "Well...they're two women traveling alone," Lazareva said. "Could be this is unrelated. Maybe they checked into the motel to wait out the storm and a couple of fellow travelers got a little too friendly."

  Mallory considered it, then shook her head. "We'll never know for sure unless we check it out. Do you know where Meridian is?"

  "Yeah, I think so."

  "Let's go and check out the scene." She fastened her seatbelt as Lazareva pulled out of the parking lot and swung around to get back on the interstate.

  As the truck picked up speed, Lazareva said with a grin, "You know, we are two women traveling alone. You think someone might try to take advantage of us?"

  Mallory returned her smile. "Let 'em try."

  Chapter Twelve

  Garrett Hadley was furious. He had called the number for the payphone Kay had given him, but there had been no answer. They left the airport in a rental car and he tried once more before giving up. "If those idiots are holed up in their room watching Pay Per View porn, I'm going to make it so they never enjoy another skin flick as long as they live."

  Estevez chuckled from the backseat. Hadley was in the front, next to the kid Perry Rinehart. Perry had been Roy's last hire, so bringing him along was a sort of trial by fire. Hadley would see how the kid performed and then decide about letting him stay on full time. Besides, they needed all the warm bodies they could get.

  They used a map provided by the car rental company to find the Blue Motel. As they approached, Perry suddenly picked up speed. "What the hell are you doing?" Hadley said. "It's right..." Then he saw what the kid had already spotted — a half-dozen black-and-white police cars filled the motel parking lot, light bars flashing to beat the band. People were lined up outside their rooms, all of them looking in the same direction.

  "Do you want me to—?"

  "No. You did the right thing. Keep going."

  Hadley and Estevez both turned to watch as they passed. One room was blocked off with crime scene tape, and a man in an ME's uniform was wheeling a gurney out of another room three or four doors away. Hadley recognized the big truck parked by the manager's office as the one that the Ranger and the FBI lady had been driving when they left Saxe. Perry turned a corner and Hadley sagged against the seat. "Shit."

  "You think it's them?" Estevez said.

  "Of course it's them." Hadley ran his fingers along his upper lip and thought hard. "The Ranger's truck was there. Either she or Lance got to Kay. There's no other reason he wouldn't answer the phone."

  "Assuming he's sober," Estevez scoffed. "You think Lance offed 'em?"

  Hadley nodded. "She must have found out we were on her tail, set up a trap for Kay and Garth. Shit. She's a lot more dangerous than we gave her credit for."

  "This doesn't change anything," Estevez said. "We were always going to waste her."

  "No, wasting her was an option. Now we have no choice. She took three of our people down. She's going to die, and we're going to do it slowly."

  #

  The local detective assigned to the case
was named Gary Acheson, a tall, weather-beaten cowboy of a man. His white-gray hair still had a touch of black where it was parted, and his lip was hidden behind a thick mustache that, had it been black, would have reminded Mallory of Tom Selleck. He didn't look happy when Mallory flashed her identification and badge, but softened slightly when she assured him they weren't going to steal the case from him. "We just want to look around," she explained. "There might be a connection to a case we're working on, but the bodies are totally yours. We don't want 'em."

  He scratched his chin with a thumbnail and looked at Lazareva. He nodded at the badge on her chest. "Texas Ranger? Must be pretty big if it got one of you to come all the way up here to the Promised Land."

  Lazareva smirked. "I'm planning on taking a long, hot shower when I get back on the good side of the river, Detective."

  He chuckled and waved them past the crime scene tape. "Don't touch anything."

  "Yes, sir, Detective Acheson." Mallory ducked under the tape and then held it up for Lazareva. People were lining the second-story railing, watching the real life movie playing out below. The walkway in front of the open doors carried the reek of blood, the burn of gunpowder, and the ozone of the rainstorm. Mallory led the way to the blood-spattered door of the first crime scene. Lazareva stood a few yards away on the sidewalk while Mallory crouched next to the tarp-covered body. She pulled back one edge and blinked at the familiar face that confronted her. "Son of a bitch."

  Lazareva stepped into the room. "What is it?"

  Mallory flipped the sheet back so Lazareva could see, then rolled onto the balls of her feet. She rested her arms on her knees and looked at the dead man's face. "This is Kevin Keating. He worked at the Four Roses Bar. What the fuck was he doing here?"