Her Last Chance

by Stephanie Belafonte

  “When should I call?”

  “Tonight? Tonight. I’m sorry, I know this really sucks, but please call this evening.”

  One last kiss and I hurried out Finn’s front door, down the sidewalk, and into my car. I didn’t peel away on the blacktop, but I hit the gas pedal so hard my head snapped back into the seat.

  ***

  Michelle paced around the office waiting room as I walked through the front door. She had her arms crossed, tucked tight around herself, and it was easy to see that she’d been crying. Her normal spotless perfection was now a muddled, chaotic web of tangled hair, a runny nose, and streaking mascara. She swiped her nose on a green sweater sleeve and practically leapt forward, pulling me into a hug.

  “What happened?” I asked as I returned the embrace, then leaned back to look at her.

  “Lucy’s in the hospital.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Oh no, is she okay?”

  Michelle shook her head.

  “Was she in a car accident or something?”

  She shook her head once more, looking away. “That probably would’ve done less damage.”

  “Really? But what—”

  “A client did it.”

  “No,” I said, dragging out the word in a long whisper of disbelief. I tried to recall whom she’d been with the night before. Lucy had a huge collection of A-list clients that had stuck with her for years. Wealthy, powerful, famous men that would never risk getting too rough, much less hurt her badly enough to require a hospital visit. From the way she talked, they adored her.

  Only recently, like within the past week, had she even entertained the idea of bringing some new clients on board. There were a couple of prospects, but I didn’t think she’d finalized anyone. We hadn’t even processed the background checks yet.

  “Who was it?” I asked, feeling the anger roiling inside.

  Michelle whimpered, “I don’t know. She called last night, after you left to go pick up Joey, and said she’d met a guy with deep pockets and wanted to take him out for a test drive.”

  “You told her no, right? Not without the background check?”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, I did at first, but then she said he was offering numbers with, like, five zeroes behind them, just to start, and that he planned to stick around for a while.”

  “You didn’t…”

  The corners of Michelle’s mouth pitched downward as her bottom lip trembled. She couldn’t hold back the tears. “I thought it would be okay,” she insisted. “Lucy knows—she knows people and how they are. And we’ll need that kind of money when the time comes, Kim. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” Shoulders bent, shaking, she sobbed into her hands.

  I pulled her close, hugging her, stroking her hair. “I would’ve done the same thing,” I lied.

  She sniffed and pulled away. “No, you wouldn’t have. I know you better than that. You would’ve made her wait. You would’ve told her that the risk wasn’t worth it.”

  I pinched my lips together. She did know me pretty well. “Maybe, but that’s beside the point, Mish. How’d you find out?”

  “A nurse called from the hospital, right before I called you. She said Lucy can’t even hold a phone, but she wanted us to know that she’s okay and that she won’t be working for a while.”

  “Come on,” I said, grabbing her arm.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the hospital.”

  ***

  Our ride to Blessed Heart Memorial was a quiet one after I’d pressed Michelle for all the details she’d been able to gather from the nurse. The news of Finn’s return, and our subsequent lustful celebration, could wait. Lucy’s health and safety were infinitely more important, no matter how badly I wanted to tell Michelle that something wonderful was on the horizon.

  I almost fainted when we walked into Lucy’s room. The sight of her lying there, damaged, beaten and broken like a doll tossed out of a speeding car’s window, was nearly too much to bear. And really, it looked like she’d been run over by a rig and dragged down the highway.

  Such a gorgeous, brilliant woman, reduced to a crippled heap of tubes, casts, and blackened bruises.

  A nurse, tall and thin with wispy gray hair, finished readjusting an I.V. and sidestepped over to us. “She can talk,” the nurse said, “but she doesn’t remember anything, or doesn’t want to tell us what happened. Maybe you can get it out of her, but don’t press too much, okay? She needs her rest. I’ll check back in a bit.”

  While I managed to maintain my composure, barely—I’m not sure that choking back nausea counts—Michelle disintegrated into a puddle of tears, sobbing, and unintelligible words. The only thing I could pick out was, “My fault,” before she stumbled over to a chair and fell into it.

  I took Lucy’s hand. It felt cool and dry. The long, exquisitely manicured nails seemed out of place, foreign, there in the hospital bed.

  My heart ached. She opened her left eye only; the right was black, purple, and swollen shut. What was once white in the good eye was now a deep, blood red. She smiled through puffy lips, and from what I could see, thank God, she still had all of her teeth. “Hey, Kim,” she squeaked.

  “God, Lucy, I’m so sorry.”

  “Why’s she’s crying?” Lucy asked, wincing and lifting her chin toward Michelle.

  “She thinks it’s her fault.”

  Michelle looked up long enough to say, “It is. It is my fault,” before returning her disassociated gaze back out the window. She picked at a loose piece of skin on her bottom lip and stared off into the distance.

  “No,” Lucy said. “No, sweetheart, I knew better.” But Michelle wouldn’t listen.

  “Who was it?” I asked. “Who did this shit to you?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Try. What did he look like? What was his name?”

  She shook her head, hissing at the pain in her neck. Her left arm was in a cast, as was her right leg. Her face was a swollen mass, and from the looks of it, she had bandages wrapped around her middle, likely for a number of broken ribs. One long gauze pad taped to the side of her forehead, stained with seeping blood. She was lucky she survived the attack.

  Lucy said, “I really don’t know. When I try to picture him, it’s just a fuzzy, gray mess in my head. We were at the Concord Hotel downtown, that’s all I remember.”

  “Then there should be a record of you guys checking in, right? That should give the police something to go on.”

  Her left eye popped open further. “No cops.”

  “Jesus, Lucy, we have to. Look what happened to you.”

  She swallowed hard. “My mouth’s so dry. Can you hand me some of that water?” I did, and she sucked through the straw while I held the cup. Water dribbled from the corner of her mouth. “I don’t want the police involved.”

  “Why?” I pleaded.

  “And tell them what I was doing there? No thank you.”

  I pulled up a nearby chair and sat beside the bed, holding Lucy’s hand. As much as I hated to admit it, and wanted the guy that did this to be caught and punished, she had a point. While we were officially in the “entertainment” business, getting the police involved would lead to more questions than we wanted to answer. Shit like this was the reason Roman hired guys like my former bodyguard, Saunders, to stand outside in the hallway.

  I’d been meaning to do it, but it wasn’t in the budget, not until the six-month period was up and we had income to work with. Such an idiotic idea to forsake everyone’s safety in the name of the bottom line. I didn’t throw the punches, but it was just as much my fault for not making safety a priority. As I stared at Lucy, who grimaced every time she took a breath, I decided that we absolutely had to hire security detail as soon as possible. I felt horrible.

  I asked, “You can’t remember anything at all about him? Nothing whatsoever?”

  Lucy managed to turn her head toward me. “Not a thing. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “Maybe I could go
down to the Concord and ask some questions. Did you talk to anyone at the front desk? Did they see you with him?”

  “Kim…no. I don’t want you getting involved. What if he finds out you’re asking around? You could be in that other bed over there, and I don’t want that weighing on my chest.” She tried to smile. “It’s too hard to breathe already.”

  “It won’t be like that, I promise.”

  “Too risky. Maybe if you had a friend that owed you a favor or something, but I don’t want you anywhere near this guy. Mama Hen’s orders.” Mama Hen. That’s what all the other ladies called her, and even though Michelle and I were the owners and technically her boss, we were part of her brood, too.

  Michelle came to life in the corner. “What did you say?” She pushed herself up from the chair and walked briskly toward us. “You said something about a favor.”

  “I don’t know,” Lucy mumbled. “Just a thought.”

  Michelle said to me, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I might be?” I said, twisting the sentence into a question. If we were thinking the same thing, it was our best option until we could scrape together the funds to hire bodyguards, or possibly even a private investigator.

  Or a hitman.

  “That guy,” she said. “The oilman from Texas. Remember how you always said he adored you? What was his name?”

  “Walter Wickam.” Where was she going with this? I thought she was talking about having me do a couple of nights with my old clients to raise some petty cash.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you. He called yesterday.”

  “He did? Why?” As far as I knew, he’d found someone in Dallas to cater to his scandalous desires once he found out I’d left Roman and was no longer available.

  “He said he’d heard that you’d started your own business and wanted to congratulate you.”

  I shook my head, not understanding how this had anything to do with Lucy’s situation. “And? I mean, that’s great, but…”

  “He said you’d changed his life and wanted you to know how grateful he was, that he—”

  I interrupted her. “Mish, seriously, what does this have to do with anything?”

  She stomped her foot, huffed, and held out her hands, clearly getting frustrated with me. “If you’d stop interrupting, I’ll tell you. His exact words were,” she said, mimicking his Texas drawl, “‘You tell that young lady that if she ever needs anything, and I mean anything, to give ol’ Dubya Three a call.’ And then he said, ‘It don’t matter what for, neither. Whatever she needs, I know people.’”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Two more days, two more of my escorts in the hospital.

  Melissa Jane and Hillary Thomas. A former Wall Street lawyer and a former plastic surgeon. Lying in their hospital beds, barely able to function, no worse than Lucy, but no better either; it was obvious that they wished they’d stayed in their former professions. Neither had the fighting spirit of Mama Hen.

  Melissa quit as soon as I walked through her door. Hillary gave it five minutes, but no more.

  Did I blame them? Of course not.

  Did I blame myself? Absolutely.

  Part of the reason they were there was because I simply hadn’t been able to get in touch with everyone to warn them. They were out of town, they had their cell phones off, whatever the reason, I did what I could with the limited time I had. On top of running the normal business, we also had to factor in the time spent searching for affordable security companies willing to hire out for the jobs we required.

  I was too stubborn, stupid, and pigheaded, choosing to ignore Michelle’s advice and call Dubya Three. It wasn’t his fight. I was too proud to ask for help from a former client.

  The biggest problem was, I hadn’t stressed the unconditional necessity for the background checks before my escorts took on a new client. Like Lucy, both Melissa and Hillary had met the same man who’d offered more cash than they’d see in a month’s time, and chose to meet with him without calling in to let us know.

  Their negligence, and mine, earned them a stay in the hospital. Three different women, three different hospitals, all beaten within an inch of their lives. All dropped off at the emergency room entrance in the middle of the night. All with “selective amnesia.”

  How they all managed to convince the nurses and doctors that calling the police wasn’t necessary remains a mystery.

  Luckily, they both remembered more details than Lucy, and we were able to piece together a hazy picture of what he looked like. Brown hair, brown eyes. Clean shaven. Bodybuilder type with only one distinguishing feature—a teardrop tattoo under his left eye.

  That was it.

  I cried when I talked to Finn…when I told him that we had to put the brakes on for a few days because we had an unavoidable situation with my company. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea—neither of us were, because we’d waited so long—but he understood. Said that the bitter medicine was easier to swallow because he knew how to find me this time. Said that he’d waited a year, he could be patient for a couple more days.

  When he asked what kind of business, ugh, I’m ashamed to admit that I faked an incident with something boiling over on the stove, and told Finn that I’d explain everything once I had a chance.

  I’d felt sick to my stomach after I hung up with him. Poor guy. Poor me.

  My heart ached. Literally. It was this pulling sensation in the center of my chest.

  It was longing and disappointment.

  The timing absolutely could not have been worse. It was like opening a present on Christmas morning and finding the one thing you’d waited a year for, and then having your parents take it away from you.

  When Michelle and I left Hillary’s bedside at the hospital, we walked down the white-walled, white-tiled hallway, side by side. Michelle had her arm hooked around mine with her head on my shoulder. We were both in a daze, terrified that it would happen again, confused about who was targeting our escorts, and why.

  If it had stopped with Lucy, I might’ve thought that it was random chance. An isolated event and she happened to be the unfortunate one. I’d checked the newspapers to see if there had been any other reports of brutal attacks on women in the past week or so and found nothing. I’d called the other escort services around the city, the ones I was familiar with, and asked if something similar had happened to any of their employees. They were all safe.

  If it had stopped with Lucy, I wouldn’t have grown suspicious.

  But, no, three of my ladies had almost been beaten to death.

  Someone was targeting us.

  As we rode the elevator down, I said to Michelle, “Go back to the office and call everyone in. Get them all there—I don’t care what they’re doing, tell them they have to drop everything and be at the office by one o’clock. If they’re out of town, conference them in.”

  “Why?”

  “It has to be a former client, or somebody that’s familiar with our company. We’ve been so sneaky and secretive and we’re so new that not that many people know about us, right?”

  She nodded. “Right.”

  “So that means it’s someone that knows. Get everyone together and give them a description. Find out if any of them have been with a guy like that, like maybe he wanted to take things too far and they sent him packing. It’s gotta be somebody with a grudge. It has to.”

  The elevator doors opened and we stepped into the lobby. “Sounds like a plan,” Michelle said, “but what’re you going to do?”

  “I’m calling Texas.”

  ***

  “Kim, darlin’, it’s good to hear from you.”

  I sat in my car in the parking lot with the engine running, watching the rain pour down the windshield. I’d never seen as much rain as I had in the past couple of days. The bottom had fallen out of the sky. “Walter, I’m sorry I don’t have time to catch up and I know it’s really rude of me—”

  “Honey,” he interrupted, “the word ‘rude’
don’t exist between us. Anything you want, it’s yours.”

  “I need help.”

  Maybe it was the tone in my voice—the desperate pleading that I tried to hide—that tipped him off. Immediately, he asked, “What kinda trouble you in? Because like I told your partner, I know people.”

  “I know you do, and that’s why I’m calling.” I could feel the lump welling up in my throat. I was beyond allowing my pride to get in the way. The reality of the situation, while cumbersome and frightening before, had finally begun to wrap its claws around my body. Choking and heavy. I wanted to throw the phone out the window and let my tears cascade down my cheeks like the rain outside. I swallowed hard, forcing the golf ball of regret down.

  No, damn it. No.

  I couldn’t allow fear and self-pity to take over.

  My world. My control.

  I said, “Someone put three of my girls in the hospital.”

  I could almost hear him sit upright in his chair. “Who?” he asked.

  “We don’t know. We’ve been mostly underground on purpose, you know, so it has to be someone that’s familiar with us. We’re thinking maybe a former client.”

  “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Can they identify him?”

  I explained what little I’d learned about his appearance; also that we were gathering everyone together to see if he had been one of ours and was recently rejected.

  “I hate to ask, I do, because I know you’ve got more important—”

  “Anytime, day or night, darlin’. I’m at your whimsy.”

  “Do you think you can help somehow?”

  “Hang tight,” he said. “Let me make a phone call.”

  I thanked him and we hung up. I watched the rivers of rain racing across the parking lot, waiting patiently, thinking, and running through scenarios in my mind.

  Five minutes later, he called back.

  Dubya Three said, “Library on Third and Washington. Can you be there in twenty minutes?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “Get there on time, or he walks. This fella don’t like waiting, not at all. He said he’ll have on a leather jacket and a Mariners cap. Goes by the name of Harris, but who knows if that’s real or not.”