ON The Rocks (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 3) (Redemption Thriller Series 15)

by John W. Mefford

  She was about to speak, when her leg stopped moving and her mouth hung open. “Oh my God. Your face. What happened?”

  I didn’t want her sympathy, but she had to know the truth about the man to whom she was married. After I explained how it had happened and what little description of the attacker I could provide, I said, “Do you know who could have done this?”

  “Earl’s behind it,” she said, shaking her head. “It had to be Earl. But how would he know?” She pulled a phone from her small black clutch.

  “Is that the new phone?”

  She didn’t respond as she thumbed through a few screens. Her fingers stopped moving as her eyes stayed on one image. Then, she let the phone drop to her lap and pressed her fingers against her forehead. She was holding back tears.

  “What is it, Rosie?” My tone was empathetic but more in line with what one might say to a client as opposed to a lover or even a good friend.

  She began to shake her head.

  “Rosie, talk to me.”

  Still nothing. Part of me wanted to go over and hold her hand, put my arm around her. That was who I was, sexual tension or not. But, for now, I held steady and tried another tactic.

  “Did you get the message from Brook last night?”

  A head nod.

  Progress.

  “Why didn’t you respond to her?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure I was ready, dammit!”

  I could feel eyes on us. I looked over and saw two of the mechanics gawking through the windows to my office. I flipped the blinds shut and then closed the door. I sat on the edge of the desk.

  I said in a soft tone, “You’re afraid to leave him.”

  She looked up, her eyes red. “Look at what happened to you, Oz. I care about you, and look at what he did to you. If I leave him, he’ll find me.”

  “Rosie, I can assure you that if we work with Brook, we’ll figure out a way to make sure you’re safe. She’ll make sure you have protective custody. It can work. I’ve seen it done with the craziest of men going after their wives or girlfriends.”

  “But you don’t know Earl. He’s connected. He finds out things you’d never think was possible. He’s driven to get what he wants.”

  “I realize I don’t know him.” I stopped for a moment, thought about what she’d just said.

  “What does he want, Rosie?”

  “Power.”

  “That’s all?

  “Respect. Money. All of it. Nothing can satisfy his hunger for all of this fake shit that he’s obsessed with. It’s never enough. He’s like a heroin addict. He always wants more.”

  “So will you tell me why you think he was involved in killing Stuart Benson?”

  Her breath quivered as her moist eyes looked into mine.

  “Stuart wanted to be bought out, to cash in on all of his hard work so he and his wife could finally live their lives. They wanted to travel the world, experience other cultures, make new friends. They had it right, Oz.”

  She closed her eyes momentarily, leaned forward. She took in a breath, her bosom expanding out of her dress. An unplanned tease, was how my primal urges saw it. But on the surface, I ignored it. “So you admired the Bensons.”

  “Fuck yes!” She licked her lips. “Sorry for being so emotional.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Yes, I wanted to be like them. When Earl heard the Bensons talk about their goals, I was hoping a light would go on. When he didn’t say anything, I tried bringing it up.”

  She coughed out a laugh.

  “Was he not ready for that in his life?” I was beginning to sound and feel more like an arm-chair therapist.

  “Are you kidding me?” she said, her toned arms splayed wide. “Privately, he made fun of them. He thought they were a bunch of saps. He laughed and said that Stuart was the biggest pansy he’d ever met. He couldn’t believe Stuart had allowed himself to be brainwashed by his wife. Earl thought that was the ultimate form of emasculating a man.”

  I turned to the window and only saw dusty shades. I couldn’t escape this drama. Yet, part of me just wanted to hold Rosie against my chest and make her feel protected, cared for. I slowly returned my gaze to her. She’d found the roll of toilet paper, and she was tearing off sheets and using them generously. Two wads were on the floor.

  I opened my mouth, on the cusp of asking how the hell she’d thought to marry this asshole. But it was all in the past now. Bringing it up would only incite more anxiety. I wasn’t going to do that to her.

  “I’m really sorry you’ve had to live with a man like this, Rosie.”

  “I know what you must be thinking. ‘Didn’t she learn anything after being married to Billy?’ But I swear, I saw no signs of it.”

  “Cut yourself a break. You were just looking to find a good person and thought Earl might be the one.”

  “I know, even though he was more than twice my age,” she grudgingly added, her chin nearly touching her knees.

  She was basically reading my mind. But I continued with the esteem-building thoughts. “Rosie, you can’t beat yourself up. You were taking him at his word and what he’d shown you initially. You believed he was a good person. That says more about you than it ever will about him.”

  I couldn’t help but reach over, put my finger under her chin. She lifted her head and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever told me.”

  Her almond-shaped eyes looked at me longingly. I didn’t turn away. I held her gaze, not sure what I should be thinking or feeling. I wondered what was about to happen. Would she turn into Alpha Rosie, toss everything off my desk, and do me right there?

  That couldn’t happen. Wouldn’t happen.

  But a small piece of me wanted it to happen. I shoved that craving to the back of my mind.

  “You’ve shared a lot about Earl and how you hoped your marriage would turn out. It didn’t happen. So how did you come to think he might have killed Stuart Benson?”

  “I heard him talking about it on the phone.”

  Now we were finally getting to the meat. Brook could get a warrant for Earl’s phone records. “When?”

  “Maybe a week before Stuart was shot.”

  “Wait. If you knew he was going to kill Benson, why didn’t you say something, go to the cops?”

  She pressed her lips together, as if I should know. She said, “I heard him threaten people all the time. On the phone, to me in person. He was all about the bravado. He bragged that he could take out anyone he wanted, anyone who got in his way, and it didn’t matter how much money they had or their position in society. He said he knew enough bad people…they would do anything for him, even kill.”

  “Sounds crazy.”

  “He was. Still is. But he’s so full of himself that it was impossible to know when he was just mouthing off. Most of the time, he was.”

  “So, it’s more like now you’ve looked back and realized you may have heard him threaten to kill Benson.”

  “I did hear him threaten to kill Benson, Ozzie. I didn’t imagine it. Earl said, ‘If that fucker doesn’t drop his price by at least fifty percent, I want his body full of lead.’”

  “Do you know who he was speaking to?”

  “Almost certain it was Snake.”

  “Snake. That’s a man’s name?”

  “Just his nickname from his days in fighting for the UFC.”

  Ding ding ding. Mixed Martial Arts fighter.

  “He has this voice where it sounds like he’s about to lose it any second. Almost like he smoked a pack of Marlboros or screamed all night at a concert. That’s Snake.”

  “Do you know him by any other name besides Snake?”

  “You don’t know Snake from UFC?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “His name is Lyle Pierce. Yep, I’d bet he’s the guy who killed Benson. And it probably wasn’t his virgin voyage.”

  I thought more about this evidence. While a good lawyer might say that R
osie had a bias against Earl, Brook could use this information to help her get that warrant.

  “You got to understand, Ozzie. Earl does this to everyone. He gets contractors, vendors to do work for him, sell him a product, but after the fact, he’ll have one of his fancy lawyers tell the poor guy that he’ll give him ten cents on the dollar.”

  “And none of these contractors or vendors have gone public?”

  She shook her head. “They’re threatened. I once heard Earl’s lawyer, some slick dick named Al Molitor, say that if the contractor didn’t submit a new invoice at ten percent of the original, then he had full authority to send someone over to break both his legs.”

  The scope of Earl’s viciousness went well beyond treating his wife like crap. He had the ego and the mindset of some drug kingpin. With his insatiable hunger for money and power, part of me wondered if he might have expanded his empire into illegal businesses. And with the border only four hundred miles to our south, the close proximity could make the vulture salivate.

  To hell with this guy. I could feel my pulse quicken. I needed to share this with Brook, get Rosie in protective custody. This might be big enough to bring in the FBI. Maybe I’d be lucky enough to cross paths again with Alex and Nick. Worse things could happen.

  First things first. Call Brook. I reached over, grabbed my phone from my desk. Before I could turn around, Rosie’s mouth was peeled to my neck, her hands under my shirt, clawing at my chest.

  I knew I was in trouble.

  24

  Rosie bumped my jaw—a jolt of pain lit up my entire head. I groaned loudly. She must have thought I was really into it, because she groaned back, ravenously pawing at me like I was a piece of meat.

  But my hands weren’t innocently sitting on the sideline. I couldn’t use my mouth, for obvious reasons. Acting if they had a mind of their own, my hands ran across every inch of her body, touching and feeling anything they could reach. She pulled off one arm of my T-shirt. I actually resisted. Well, maybe there was about twenty-five-percent resistance.

  She paused, pulling back for a second, her eyes on my chest.

  I finally took a breath. “Hey, this got out of hand. I think we should—”

  Before I got in another word, her lips were giving me soft kisses around my bruise on my torso. They were so soft, so erotic that I wanted to pull her up to my mouth and match her lust ten-fold with a kiss she’d never forget. But I knew my jaw couldn’t handle that kind of action.

  At least my body couldn’t keep up with where my mind was going.

  She then ran her hand up the inside of my leg, stopping at my groin. The throbbing pain had returned, but not to my jaw.

  Okay, my body was keeping up just fine. I could feel myself losing all control. I was like putty in her hands, reacting to everything she did, every moan, every pinch of my skin. My heart beat so hard I could feel the nerves behind my eyes pulsating.

  I had to have her. Now. And by the animalistic look in her eyes, I could tell she knew it—and she wanted it even more. I fingered with the zipper along the back of her dress, but I didn’t make much progress. Not in the two seconds I was given. The next thing I knew, she hiked her dress above her waist, and my hands were touching butt cheeks.

  No underwear. I looked down.

  “You know I’ve wanted you ever since we met, Ozzie.” Her face was no more than an inch from mine. She had this intensity about her that was almost frightening in its allure. “I can’t go another minute without having a real man inside me. A man who knows how to treat women. This woman. And this woman wants to f—”

  “Hold on!” I was out of breath.

  She stopped only long enough to adjust her head so she could nibble on my ear. Then she began raking her teeth along my neck.

  “Rosie, this can’t happen,” I said.

  She didn’t stop.

  “Rosie!” I grabbed her by the arms, pulled her back. “This…us, we can’t do this. You shouldn’t do this. You have too much shit going on in your life right now. You’re confused, desperate for someone to love you. To really love you. But I don’t love you. And allowing this…well, I’d just be acting selfishly, and that’s not me.”

  She took a step back. Her hair was mussed, her dress still partially lifted. She wiped her lips and looked at me. I couldn’t tell if that was a look of sadness or resentment.

  “Rosie, you’re an amazing woman. You deserve to be treated with respect. And that doesn’t have anything to do with this raw-emotion thing we have going on here. Having sex on this desk or on my couch isn’t going to make you feel any better.”

  “Ozzie.” That was all she said as she shook her head.

  I held up my left hand, showed her the ring that was still on my finger. “I’m still married. I know it’s fucked up, but I’m in love with Nicole. I’m pretty messed up myself right now.”

  Three quick knocks on the door, rattling the cage-like office.

  “Ozzie, are you in there? It’s me, Nicole.”

  I didn’t bother hiding anything or pretending that I wasn’t there. I took a couple of steps and opened the door. Nicole’s sparkling honey eyes instantly went dark, as if her life had just come toe-to-toe with the forces of evil.

  Maybe they had.

  25

  I don’t know why, but my sights dropped to what Nicole had in her hand. It was a small basket. From what I could see, it was filled with snacks and other goodies.

  “Hi,” I said, way too innocently.

  Her eyes went over my shoulder to give Rosie the once-over.

  “Your mom…” she began, and then she wiped her hand across her face.

  “Nicole, it’s just that you—”

  “I what? I what, Ozzie Novak?” She jabbed a finger into my chest, the part that wasn’t covered by the T-shirt.

  She grabbed the bottom of the scrunched-up T-shirt and pulled it down. That was when I realized it was the same one I’d worn last night, the one with the picture of Lombard Street on it, the one Nicole used to wear to bed.

  Her breathing became labored, her eyes dazed.

  “Are you okay? Do you need to sit down? Come on in. We should talk.”

  “Sit down?” Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits, her entire body swaying like one of those blow-up figures in front of mattress stores.

  “I realize I’m kind of the elephant in the room.” Rosie wiggled her dress over her hips and straightened it. Then she did something that made my jaw drop, literally. My mouth hung open, even if it did feel like hell. Rosie leaned toward Nicole and extended her hand. “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure, Nicole. I’m Rosie. It’s so nice to meet you.”

  The move was so brazen, so in-your-face. I was without words. In fact, I wanted to disappear. But I couldn’t. I had to stay there and take it like a man.

  Nicole poked a finger in Rosie’s direction. “This is Rosie?” Nicole said, not accepting the offered hand. I really couldn’t blame her.

  I thought Nicole’s head was going to pop off. She went red—her neck, ears, face, even her eyes had flecks of fire in them.

  I stammered, “Uh, yes.”

  “He speaks very highly of you, Nicole. I think that’s important for you to know,” Rosie said.

  I wanted to staple her mouth shut.

  Nicole did not even look at her. “Is this woman actually talking to me?”

  I closed my eyes, just for a second, and then wiped my battered face with my hands.

  “She’s the woman who’s being victimized by that mean old man?” Nicole quickly sent a disgusted glance Rosie’s way. “What…how? He’s cheating on her with Summer Davis? And she’s trying to…with you? My husband? I don’t get it. I don’t want to get it.” She threw her hands into her hair and held on, disbelief all over her face.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rosie stiffen a bit. Her smug demeanor had taken a nosedive.

  Nicole said, “You lied to me, Ozzie.”

  “Why do you think— Hell, it doesn’t matter.
But, no, I didn’t lie.”

  “Look at her, Ozzie. Here I was thinking you were assisting some helpless sixty-year-old woman, when it turns out she’s just nothing but a tramp.” She spit the last words in Rosie’s direction.

  I held up my hands, my heart racing.

  “Nicole. No need to get into name-calling.”

  Which was about the lamest thing I could have said. Nicole’s head swayed left to right, her eyebrows high on her head, her eyes wild and wide.

  “You think, Ozzie? Because I don’t. In fact, I have much more to say than that.”

  Nicole took a step in Rosie’s direction, her tiny hand balling into a fist. I quickly stepped in between the two women.

  “Obviously, you have no idea how to keep a man of this quality happy,” Rosie said with a sneer.

  Oh hell. “Rosie, that’s enough,” I snapped.

  Nicole’s whole body quaked. She was going to punch something—me, Rosie, maybe the wall. I knew I deserved it more than anyone, and I instinctively put a hand to my jaw. How much damage would she do to my already-damaged body? I clenched my teeth, ready to take it.

  Just when I thought violence was inevitable, Nicole sucked in a breath and took one step back. Her face lost all emotion. She stared blankly straight ahead, her eyes blinking every couple of seconds.

  Rosie whispered, “Maybe she’s having a nervous breakdown.”

  “Geez, Rosie. Shut it. Seriously. Do you have no empathy for other people? Please keep your thoughts to yourself. I don’t want to hear them.”

  She put her fingers to her lips and pretended to turn a lock as if she would not speak anymore. She then turned around, grabbed her clutch, and sifted through it. Why doesn’t she just get the hell out of here?

  “Nicole, I can explain… I mean, I want to explain everything. It’s not what you think.”

  She raised a single finger but did not look at me. “Yesterday in the hotel room, we…” I moved closer to her, keeping her line of sight away from Rosie. “I know. This isn’t me. I made a mistake, Nicole.”