A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

by Meli Raine

  She’s smart.

  And that makes her dangerous, too.

  “I’m sure my MBA is better resume material than your degree, Lindsay. Where did you get it again? During your stay at the mental institution? You were there for four years, right? Did they give your daddy a bulk-rate discount?”

  Stepping closer, she tries to physically intimidate me in addition to her verbal onslaught. Taller because of her heels, she towers over me.

  Come here, my pretty....

  Drew steps closer out of protection. Mandy and Jenna just come in to watch what they think is about to be an entertaining catfight.

  Drew’s slow inhale tells me he’s getting pissed on my behalf, but it’s fine. Really. She’s walking right into my trap, and if I play this just right—

  “You would know all about daddies and bulk discounts now, wouldn’t you, Tara? Sugar daddies, that is. You’re the expert.”

  I say it low enough that everyone around us can hear, but if there’s sound on a video camera, it might not pick my words up.

  Mandy shrieks with surprise, tittering in the background as it happens. Tara reaches for me. I step back.

  “You slutty little no-good bitch,” she growls.

  “Whats the matter, Tara? Can’t handle it when your victim can actually talk back?”

  She reaches out with her fingers, curled like talons, and touches my shirt. Her face is a mask of pure hatred. I have no idea what I did four years ago to deserve what she did to me then, and I’ve never seen her this angry. The fact that she’s reacting like this, and that her rage is bubbling beneath her fake-pretty surface is telling.

  I pivot just enough to teeter on my heels, then free fall backwards, letting myself, making sure her back is facing the shop wall.

  The distance between us is inches. Her arm is stretched out as if she’s pushing. I grab the strap of her purse right at her breastbone and yank her with me.

  SPLASH!

  I push off from the wall of the pier and get over to the left as fast as possible, the shock of water and swimming all I can think of. Tara’s thrashing beside me. She’s a strong swimmer, but her purse floats on the surface, makeup and receipts and dollars starting to ripple out of it. Two big shopping bags she had on one arm are half-floating, half-sinking.

  I go back under so I don’t have to listen to her screaming at me. When I come back up, I surface at the wall and look to see Drew right there, an arm extended to help me up, his palm open.

  I take it.

  “YOU FUCKING BITCH!” Tara is screaming. “You did that on purpose!”

  Wedging one foot on the wall, I use my other knee to climb out, Drew’s arm much stronger than I judged. The force of his pull upward has me on land. I don’t dare sit down, because I need to be ready to run.

  “Lindsay didn’t do anything, Tara. You did,” Drew says evenly to her. He turns to me. “You okay?”

  All I can do is nod.

  “WHAT!” Tara sputters. Her shopping bags look like the Titanic, unable to maintain buoyancy beyond a certain point. “OMIGOD, Mandy and Jenna, help me!”

  They both look like deer caught in headlights.

  “What should we do?” Jenna asks.

  “Drew! Help me out!”

  “I’m assigned to Lindsay. She’s my security priority,” he snaps.

  Tara’s swishing and splashing in the water. I have to bite my lips not to laugh. Drew gives me a speculative look, like it’s occurring to him that maybe I’m not so innocent after all.

  Not in this instance.

  Tara’s not wearing waterproof mascara. She starts to look like a deranged football linebacker. She’s treading water and screaming. Local security officers start to appear, men in their sixties, with grey Santa-like beards and bald heads, friendly and concerned.

  “What’s going on?” one of them asks no one in particular.

  “SHE PUSHED ME IN!” Tara screams, pointing to me. As she lifts her arm, her purse strap floats off and the entire bag starts to sink.

  “Quit lying, Tara,” Drew says evenly. He looks at the security guard and rolls his eyes, thumbing toward the water. “That one is a little...you know.” He twirls his finger around his ear in a universal gesture.

  Mandy gives Drew the side-eye. Jenna giggles.

  One of the other officers tosses a red flotation device to Tara, who grabs it and screams, “My clothes! My purse! Someone get in here and find everything!”

  No one moves.

  “You’ll pay for this, Lindsay! I’m filing assault charges against you!”

  “We have video surveillance of this entire area, ma’am,” one of the security guards assures her. “We can review those tapes and provide them to the police so they can make whatever determination they need to make.”

  “Good!” she crows. “Because this crazy little bitch just got out of the nuthouse and now she’s stalking me!”

  The guard looks at Drew, who slowly shakes his head and mouths, Not true.

  Guard #2 pulls the flotation device line in and helps Tara climb out of the water. She’s in her full outfit, still, her suede heels gone from a sleek lime green to a dull brown, her tight dress like sausage casing.

  “My phone! My purse! My clothes and shoes and oh, you did this!” Her screams are blood-curdling, but I’m not reacting at all. Drew’s standing over me, hands on hips again, just watching her make a fool of herself.

  “And you!” she screams at the guards, who look like Tweedledee and Tweedledum. “Give me your phone! I have to call the police!”

  “Not necessary, ma’am,” says Guard #1, who has pulled out a smartphone and a stylus. “I can start the process right now. How about you tell me what happened?” The guard looks back at Drew and winks.

  Winks.

  Oh, this is going to be so good. As long as I got my body positioned just right and no one sees me grabbing her purse, then I might finally have a tiny shred of revenge here. Tara deserves it.

  She deserves way more than being dunked in the water, but it’s a start.

  Drew shrugs out of his coat and puts it around my shoulders, his heat still in the thick wool as it surrounds me. Huffing the cloth would be a social faux pas, so I don’t. He takes my elbow and starts to guide me away.

  “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Tara shrieks. “I WANT HER ARRESTED! SHE ASSAULTED ME!”

  Drew looks at the guard and makes a gesture that indicates she’s cuckoo.

  Tara turns into a red demon.

  “FUCK YOU, DREW! YOU CAN’T DO THIS TO ME, TOO!”

  The guard looks at us and makes a motion with his eyebrows and neck like, You’re not kidding.

  Drew jogs over to the guy, says something in a whisper tone, and hands him a card. The guard laughs.

  “THIS ISN’T FUNNY!” Tara whips around, leaving a stream of water dripping from her hair. She reaches up and touches it. “I just had a blowout this morning! Lindsay!”

  She curses and screams as Drew gently leads me away, taking me to the parking lot where I left my car.

  Chapter 32

  “What was that about?” he asks when we’re far enough away that our eardrums aren’t being pierced by Tara’s screams.

  “You saw the whole thing. You tell me.”

  “I saw Tara being Tara and a whole new version of Lindsay back there.”

  “You mean because I stood up for myself?”

  “Is that what you call that?”

  “What else was it?”

  “Revenge.”

  “Same thing.”

  His grunt confirms I’m right.

  As we walk toward the parking lot, I wonder how he knows where my car is parked. Duh. of course he does. Mom had him here the entire time, so he’d know. I’m sure Drew and Silas and the overnight crew memorized our license plates. If I asked, they probably know my bra size and favorite brand of tampons.

  I find my keys and climb in. The car is a tiny little compact, picked with me in mind. I’m terrible in SUVs, and hate to parallel
park. The smaller the car, the better. Daddy joked that they almost got me a Smart Car, but settled for this Honda Fit instead. It’s a boring silver color that makes me blend in with the masses.

  Perfect.

  I pull out of the parking spot, my wet ass soaking the upholstered seats, and realize I’m still wearing Drew’s suit jacket. As I wait at a stop light, I really sink my nose into the cloth. Oh, it smells like him. Lime and cloves and soap and Drew.

  My insides tickle and I hear the bones in my neck crackle as my muscles melt. The inviting musk of Drew’s natural body plus cologne is so intoxicating I could get drunk on this alone. It overpowers my own wet dog scent, and I’m grateful.

  Beep!

  Someone behind me lays on the horn. I look up. Green light. Punching the accelerator a little too hard, I lurch forward but get going, stopping the onslaught of copycat honkers. I know Drew is behind me, driving a big, black SUV meant to be an unmarked car. Right. It’s about as subtle as Tara is kind.

  The speed limit on all the in-town roads is only twenty-five, so it takes a bit to get on the main road. Once we hit the long, straight road that will turn into a winding path up the hills to our oceanside compound, I relax even more. The distractions of traffic make it hard for me to drive. Two lanes, one in each direction, and a bunch of desert and ocean are easier to handle.

  Bruno Mars comes on the radio and I start singing along. Music therapy was mandatory at the Island, so I spent a lot of time listening to “prescribed” music and assigning it emotional meaning. The whole practice was stupid and devoid of any real authenticity. We all told the counselors what we thought they wanted to hear.

  Tara’s little swim runs through my mind slowly, the image of events rolling like an old filmstrip being manually viewed. Revenge tastes sweet, sure, but what did I gain from all that? She’s wet, pissed, and out some clothes and personal items from her purse.

  But now she’s angry and on the warpath. I’m her target.

  I should feel something at that realization, right? I don’t.

  No cold dread.

  No hot fear.

  I’m neutral. Warm and boring.

  Seriously—what could Tara do to me now that she hasn’t already done? How could she hurt me any more?

  Humming is good for the soul. As the road stretches out before me, I speed up just a little, careful to stay within five miles of the speed limit. Mom and Daddy have taught me to follow the law. There’s nothing worse than a lawmaker’s child being caught breaking it.

  Hah.

  Actually, there is something worse. But let’s not go there.

  Driving for a few minutes puts me into that mildly hypnotic state you get when you listen to music and travel on a route you know by heart. I’m soaked and feeling gross and I know there will be hell to pay when Mom and Daddy find out what happened with Tara, but I’m strangely feeling mellow.

  Maybe it’s because I finally got to do something.

  The car feels a little out of control as I take a curve, so I press on the brakes. Nothing happens. While it’s been four years since I last drove, I do have my foot on the correct pedal, so I push the brake harder.

  Nothing.

  I pull lightly on the steering wheel and lift up, so that my full weight is grinding in to the brake pedal. Nothing happens. The road dips down slightly and becomes curvier as the oceanside cliffs become steeper.

  What the hell is going on?

  Forty-seven miles an hour. I’m seven miles over the speed limit now, but gaining speed fast. Pumping over and over, trying to get some kind of brakes to kick in, I start to feel a sense of unreality.

  My skin feels like rubber. My mouth goes dry. My stomach roils and that hot fudge sundae is about to come up.

  Fifty-six miles an hour.

  Bracing myself, I look at the emergency brake. I’ve never had to use it before, but I remember in driver’s ed classes how our instructors told us that in a true emergency, grab and yank. I can’t close my eyes and do it, so with every fiber of my being braced for the sudden shock of the car halting, I pull it.

  Nothing.

  Oh, no.

  My phone rings. I take one hand off the steering wheel and fish for the phone in my purse.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Drew says.

  I press speakerphone and toss the phone on the passenger seat just as the car swerves horribly to the right. I hit gravel on the shoulder and feel the back of the car start to go off the road. A hard yank left and I careen into the other lane. Thank God no one’s driving in the opposite direction, or I’d have just hit them head on.

  “My brakes don’t work!” I scream. I don’t see the phone any more.

  “What?” Drew’s voice is coming from the floor of the passenger’s seat. “What are you doing, Lindsay?”

  “MY BRAKES DON’T WORK!” I shriek.

  Sixty-two miles an hour.

  All I can do is grip the steering wheel, one hand at ten o’clock, one at two o’clock like they taught in driver’s ed, and navigate the curling road, trying to stay in the lines. We’re pitching down, the incline increasing, and I can’t slow down.

  My stomach starts to spasm. I’m about to throw up. If I throw up, I’ll close my eyes, and if that happens, I’m dead.

  “LINDSAY!” Drew’s voice pierces the air. The engine is revving high as we accelerate, and it’s hard to hear him. “CAN YOU HEAR ME!”

  “YES!” I scream back.

  “LOOK TO YOUR LEFT.”

  I turn just enough to see his black SUV next to me. He rolls down the passenger window. He’s looking straight ahead, weaving with the road, staying parallel to me.

  My bladder fills and feels like a flower about to blossom. I start retching.

  “STAY CALM!” He’s in stereo now. I can hear him to my left, outside, and from the car floor where my phone must be. “I’M GOING IN FRONT OF YOU. DO AS I SAY. JUST STAY ON THE ROAD AND IN THE LINES. WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT SPEED?”

  HOOOOOOOONNNNNKKKKKK!!!!!

  I look at the road and see a giant semi-trailer coming right at Drew.

  Drew’s SUV disappears like he’s teleported it, the semi coming within inches of my car, my rearview mirror filling with the dark, ominous presence of Drew’s windshield. Somehow, he pulled back just in time for the semi to go past.

  I start hyperventilating.

  “LINDSAY? YOU WITH ME?” he shouts, pulling back next to me again.

  I can’t breathe. Can’t talk. Can’t think. Can’t anything.

  “LINDSAY! I WILL SAVE YOU.”

  He pulls up, going faster than me. I’m driving at seventy-three miles an hour now on a road meant for forty mph.

  “I’M HERE!” I shout.

  “GOOD GIRL. STAY WITH ME. YOU’RE GONNA FEEL A BUMP. HOLD ON.”

  His SUV is in front of me now as we race and twist, the road like that old-fashioned Christmas ribbon candy. All I can do is sway and drive, sway and drive, sway and drive. My butt hurts and my thighs are screaming from pushing the brake over and over, like it’ll magically kick in. My head feels like it’s on fire and I’m inching up to seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven...

  “I’M ABOUT TO LET YOUR BUMPER HIT MINE, LINDSAY.”

  “WHAT?” I nearly pee my pants. “YOU’RE GOING TO CRASH INTO ME?”

  “NO. I’M GOING TO SLOW YOU DOWN. JUST KEEP STEERING. STAY WITH ME. STAY WITH ME, BABY. YOU CAN DO THIS.”

  Baby.

  Baby.

  My stomach heaves again, but this time from emotion. Baby. Drew used to call me baby. It was his pet name for me, a word he used when he stroked my face, when he kissed me under the moonlight at the beach, when we cuddled around a bonfire.

  And now, when we’re racing toward a fiery crash of death.

  My body whiplashes as the front of my little Honda Fit crashes into the back of his enormous SUV. My hood buckles. I’m wedged under his back bumper.

  “YOU OKAY?” he screams.

  “I’M HERE.”

&
nbsp; “ALL RIGHT, BABY. LET’S MAKE THIS WORK. POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY. LET’S DO IT.”

  The grind of metal against metal splits my eardrums, the jolt of car against SUV creating a kinetic energy that ripples through me. It’s the biggest shockwave you can imagine, followed by a maddeningly itchy vibration. My car groans, and the speedometer changes fast. My head feels like someone snapped it off.

  Chapter 33

  Forty-nine.

  “HOW WE DOING?”

  I feel the rear tire do something weird. The car wiggles in the back, and then takes a sharp yank to the right. I’m barely attached to Drew’s SUV. The car starts to pitch down, from behind.

  “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” Drew shouts.

  I look back. The oceanside road has gotten narrower and steeper. The back of the car is hanging off the cliff.

  “BACK OF CAR! CLIFF! OH MY GOD!” I can’t think straight, can’t make a coherent sentence.

  Forty-seven miles per hour.

  Drew suddenly pulls to the left, just as a car comes in the opposite direction. The screech of tires, loud honking, and the sharp blow of my elbow against the door handle lead to a mixture of sensations that make the world start to spin.

  “LINDSAY!” he screams.

  I look at the dashboard.

  Forty-three miles per hour.

  “WE’RE SLOWING!” I say.

  “KEEP TALKING, BABY! I NEED TO KNOW YOU’RE SAFE!”

  My left arm is numb, the nerves screaming from the blow. I can’t close my left hand into a fist, which means I’m down to steering with my right hand and have to lean my left forearm on the steering wheel for support. An already bad situation is now impossibly worse.

  Forty-one miles per hour.

  Lights flash behind me, red and blue, blinding me. I focus on the back of Drew’s SUV.

  “THERE’S A TRUCK EMERGENCY RAMP UP AHEAD, LINDSAY. I’M AIMING US FOR IT. THE ROAD IS ABOUT TO DIP DOWN AND WE CAN’T KEEP GOING. THE RAMP GOES UP AND WE STOP FAST. GET READY.”

  Get ready for what? I want to ask, but my mouth won’t make words right now.