by Angel Lawson
“Don’t move!” the guy said, pulling a gun out from behind his back. Even from across the parking lot it was leveled clearly at her face.
Ari’s hands immediately shot in the air, palms faced out.
“He has a gun!” Ari heard from the crowd on the fringe of the parking lot. From the corner of her eye, she saw Oliver.
“It’s okay,” Ari said to the gunman. She took a deep breath, fighting the panic of being in a situation like this again. Now that he faced her, she realized he was younger than she thought. An older teen. Just like the group of thuggish-looking kids circling behind him, tense and ready to back him up.
Davis looked between Ari and the guy. Calmly, he said, “Antonio, put the gun down.”
Ari lowered her hands and Antonio shouted, “Back up! You may be one of them!”
She jerked her hands back up.
Them? Great. This guy was crazy. Delusional or something. Ari waited, on…well something. Davis? The police? She didn’t even know why this guy had a gun on her.
“You know there’s no violence on the property and we have zero tolerance for weapons,” Davis said. He took a step toward Antonio. The boy swung the gun away from Ari and pointed it at Davis. They were only feet apart.
Oliver called her name, “Ari!” and she turned to him. He frantically waved her toward a parked car. She snapped to her senses, pulling her eyes from Antonio and Davis’s standoff. She ran as fast as she could.
“No!” A woman yelled, but her voice was silenced by the shot. Loud and echoing against the metal building. Ari’s body slammed to the ground, the wind knocked out of her lungs. She skidded backwards, landing on the hard pavement.
Holy crud, that hurt.
She lifted her head, rubbing the side of her face where she’d scraped it against the pavement. Antonio was on the ground. Peter stood over him, holding the gun, one foot on his back. The gang of men that had backed him up had scattered, running into the dark. She lay back down on the cold, hard pavement. The realization that she’d been injured—maybe shot—washed over her. Her chest ached and she couldn’t see straight due to the wooziness in her head. She rubbed her chest, searching for the blood.
“Oliver,” she called. Why he hadn’t come looking for her yet?
Her name came from the dark and she twisted her head. Davis lay next to her, his dark eyes narrowed and tight.
Blood oozed from his shoulder, spreading wet and thick across his shirt.
“Oh, God,” Ari said, struggling to sit up. Her head swam. “Help! Someone help!”
“I’m okay,” he said softly.
“No, you aren’t.” The panic that had been building in her chest amplified. “Over here!”
“Ari!” Oliver called. Boyd and another man rushed over. They started to help her up, but she pointed at Davis.
“He’s hurt. Take him to the hospital.” She looked up again and saw Oliver. “Hey, why are there two of you?” she asked waving her hand in his direction.
The men glanced at one another while Boyd leaned over to check Davis. “Call an ambulance,” was the last thing Ari heard before everything went black.
TWELVE
The elevator doors opened to the eighth floor of the hospital. Ari stepped out and stopped at the nurse’s desk. The young blonde woman barely looked up, focused on her work. “I’m looking for a, uh, friend of mine.” The title “friend” seemed to be pushing it a little but it seemed like the right thing to say. “His name is Davis, he has a gunshot wound.”
The nurse finally looked at Ari, noticing the road rash on the side of her face and the cut over her eye. If she could only see Ari’s back. Her frown said enough, but she ran her finger down the patient list.
“Room 814. Visiting hours are over at nine.”
The clock over the desk said eight-fifteen. She’d pushed the visitation off all day, feeling unsure and confused about coming. In fact, Oliver didn’t want her to come at all, but she’d insisted and he was downstairs now, waiting in the main lobby reading a magazine. She wasn’t allowed to drive yet, not with the concussion, but there was no reason to stay at home. Not when she owed Davis a thank you.
Plus, she had questions.
Ari left the desk and followed the long hallway until she found the room. His name, “Davis” was on a slip of paper, tucked in the nameplate by the door.
I guess they didn’t get a full name, either, she thought.
She knocked and to her surprise, the door swung open, leaving her face-to-face with Peter. A crease appeared on his forehead and Ari said, “I just came by to see how he’s doing.”
Peter pushed the door open farther, revealing Davis in the bed. Their eyes locked and she smiled in relief. The last time she saw him, his skin had paled from the loss of blood and he’d been unable to move off the ground. Now he was propped up in bed, with a half-eaten meal tray in front of him. Her eyes wandered to the bandage on the corner of his bare shoulder.
“You should be in bed,” Davis said. His voice was soft and concerned.
“I’ve been in bed all day. I wanted to see how you were.”
They stared at one another.
“Since Ms. Grant is here to sit with you, I’m going down to the café. Want anything?” Peter said from behind her.
“Something edible?”
“I’ll try.” The huge man left, immediately allowing more space in the tight room. He also took whatever sense of ease there had been, even if minimal. She was alone with Davis, who was bare-chested and wounded. She found his skin distracting. Brown and muscular, but also battered and scarred. A hospital I.D. bracelet wrapped around his right wrist, while fluids dripped into a needle taped to his inner forearm. The leather band he constantly wore was strapped around the left. She saw the fresh wound he’d gotten from protecting her, but then also a thick, twisted scar, slicing under his collarbone. She’s seen it in her dark room, but under the glaring hospital lights, it looked gruesome. Her fingers twisted in the top button of her shirt.
“Come here,” he instructed, waving her to the bed. “How’s your head?”
“Better than your arm,” she said. He reached out and she bent over so he could see her face. Davis cupped her chin in his hand and ran a thumb lightly over the spot. Ari winced and he pulled his hand back.
“Peter said you have a concussion. Did you drive here?”
“No.” She rolled her eyes. “Oliver’s downstairs.”
“Your boyfriend? The one you came with last night?”
“My roommate. Oliver’s not my boyfriend,” she laughed. Her boyfriend, or almost boyfriend didn’t know about the shooting yet. “That’d be like dating my brother.”
Davis pointed at a chair near the bed and said, “You can sit if you want.”
“So,” Ari said, after easing into the hard vinyl chair. “Can you explain what happened last night? I walked out of the building and into a war zone.”
Davis shifted, grimacing with the movement, so that he was sitting up a little higher. “Antonio was in my program at one time. He wasn’t successful.”
“That sounds like an understatement.”
“I told you we have a small failure rate. He was one of them. He couldn’t commit to the program and kept going back to his old habits. Drug running and guns. Neither of those are acceptable.”
“So why did he come last night?”
“Guess he heard about the event.” He shook his head. “Honestly, I think he knows he made a mistake. Antonio has a lot of talent. He wasted his opportunity and he realized it. I guess he wanted payback.”
“By shooting you?”
“You know better than anyone that logic rarely plays into these kids’ actions.”
“What did he mean when he said I could be one of ‘them’?” Ari asked. “The drugs make him paranoid, Ari. He’s had a hard time with it. He went from our program to rehab. I’m guessing it didn’t work.”
They stared at one another for a minute, tension building between the two of them. A
ri had something else to ask. Something to show him but she didn’t know if she had the nerve. After another moment of silence she broke down and said, “You’re fast,” while fidgeting with her blouse.
Davis nodded. “Very.”
“You got between me and that bullet. I didn’t even see it happen.”
“You were already halfway to the ground.”
“I don’t think I was.”
Davis’s eyes were coal black and unrelenting. Ari tried her hardest to meet them. She stood and sat next to him on the hospital bed. “I thought I’d been hit. I could barely breathe it hurt so bad.” She laid a hand on her chest. “But the bullet hit you. Not me.” With Davis watching every movement she unbuttoned the top three buttons of her shirt, spreading the fabric wide.
Every time she’d been with Davis, he’d been composed. Cocky at the club, confident in bed. Even at the shooting the other night, he never wavered. Staring down the barrel of the gun. But what he saw on Ari’s chest made him flinch. She didn’t know if it was pain or anger. She started to cover herself back up but he stopped her, reaching out to grab her wrist.
“I woke up with this bruise,” Ari said. The pit of her stomach fluttered under his touch.
Davis held his hand to her chest, balled in a fist but hovering over the purple mark. Wincing from the pain in his shoulder he leaned over and laid his palm flat on her chest. She knew what he was doing. She knew the bruise was a match.
“I’m sorry,” he said, lifting his hand gently, removing the warmth.
“Why?” Ari asked. “You saved me.”
“I hurt you.”
“You saved me.”
“You wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me inviting you. I’m the one that kicked Antonio out of the program and made him feel belittled, like he needed to save face. You wouldn’t have a concussion and that nasty bruise if I’d been more careful.” His tone was hard and angry.
Ari shook her head and laughed. “Do you really think you control everything?”
“I try,” he replied in all seriousness.
“That’s kind of stupid. Not to mention a little narcissistic.” That earned her a smile and to her surprise, his cheeks reddened in embarrassment. Before she could say anything else, she heard a knock at the door and Ari slid off the bed, hastily re-buttoning her shirt. When Peter entered the room Ari had her bag and was ready to leave.
“You don’t have to leave just because I’m back,” he said. He handed Davis a brown paper bag.
“I need to go. Oliver’s waiting on me, plus visiting hours are almost over,” she said, walking over to the door.
“Thanks for coming to see me,” Davis said. “Take care of that concussion, okay?”
“Okay,” Ari said. Peter’s phone rang and he went into the bathroom to answer it. Ari used the chance to mouth the words, “Thank you,” to Davis before she slipped out of the room.
THIRTEEN
“What happened to your face, Ms. Grant?” Shawn asked, when Ari walked by the activity room. The whole day had been like that. One question after the other about her injuries.
“Took a bad spill,” she replied and entered the room, where several groups of kids waited for their programming to start. The soda machine was in the room and she was in dire need of some caffeine.
“Ooooh, Ms. Grant, that looks terrible,” one girl said.
Another piped up, “I’d never come out of the house looking like that. You need to put some cream on that.”
Ari smiled at the young teenager sitting at a table with a group of girls. “Thanks, Devon. I’ll make sure I do that.”
“Did somebody hit you?” a girl named Shanna asked. Ari pushed her coins into the change slot and selected her drink. The machine hummed and the can landed with a thunk.
“Nope,” she replied. “No one hit me. Unfortunately this is what happened when someone tried to help me.”
Ari walked through the room and she heard Shanna tell Devon, “I heard Ms. Grant was downtown and there was a big fight. Someone got shot.”
“Who told you that?” Devon asked.
“My cousin. He was there. Said Antonio was high and shot some guy he had a beef with.”
Ari paused next to the girl’s table. “Shanna, your cousin was there?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “You got that when Antonio shot that man?”
“Yes. I got this when Mr. Davis knocked me out of the way.”
“Is he the man that got shot?”
“Yes.”
“Antonio hates him. Says he’s the devil or a witch or something.”
“The devil?” Ari thought back to Davis saying Antonio was paranoid and delusional. She wondered if his drug use was a method of coping with mental illness. “Why would he say that?”
“He said that whole place is bad. That it’s a cult or something.”
“How is it like a cult?” she asked, but to be honest, she already had an idea of what he meant.
“They can’t leave that place and they have all these meetings teaching them how to behave and if they do anything wrong, they get punished.”
“That sounds like the group home I was in that time. It wasn’t a cult, though. I just hated it,” Devon said.
“It’s a very intense program,” Ari said. “I can see how it wouldn’t be the right fit for everyone.”
“I’m just saying.” Shanna looked at Devon and they both shrugged.
Rebecca walked into the room and said, “You have a phone call. I think it’s important.”
“I’ll take it in my office,” Ari said. She gave the two girls a stern look. “You two need to find something better to do than gossip.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Devon agreed.
The activity room had a side door that entered the back hallway, where the offices were located. Ari took the shortcut, reaching her desk quickly. “Ari Grant,” she said into the phone.
“Ms. Grant, this is Detective Morgan from the Glory Police Department. I got your name off Maria Snow’s file.”
Ari sat in her desk chair and searched for a pen and paper to take notes. “Maria is one of my clients. Is she okay?”
“I hate to tell you but, no, she isn’t. Her body was found in a ravine off Duncan Street last night.”
The news hit Ari like a ton of bricks. “Oh, no. What happened?”
“Can you tell me the last time you saw her?”
“I’ll have to look it up, but it’s been a couple of weeks. She missed our last several appointments and I had a warrant out for her to be picked up by Apprehension Services.” Ari spun her desk chair around and scrambled for Maria’s file in the cabinet.
“We’re going to need whatever information you have on her.”
“Of course.”
“Do you know if she was having any problems?” he asked.
“Nothing more than usual. She had a pregnancy scare last year. Truancy problems. Fights at home.”
“The crime scene wasn’t pretty. Whoever did this to Maria wanted to hurt her.”
Ari thought of the girl. Pretty and brown skinned. She loved sports—it was the only thing that kept her out of further trouble. She could only imagine that Maria put up a fight. “I’ll just get this file together and bring it to your office this afternoon, if that’s okay?”
“That would be great.”
“Have you notified her mother?”
“Yes ma’am. An officer brought her in earlier. She identified the body.”
“Okay, wow. Poor Maria.”
Detective Morgan gave the location and address of his precinct and Ari agreed to meet him there on her way home from work. She hung up the phone and walked to the office next door and broke the news.
* * *
Nick came by the office to take her to the police department. Maria had been one of his cases, too. Going together didn’t raise any suspicions other than with Rebecca who’d simply raised an eyebrow when they’d left together.
; They hadn’t seen one another since the incident at the GYC. Ari called him after she’d visited Davis, but he’d returned late and they’d made promises to meet one another after work. Maria’s death changed that. Once they were in the car, Nick reached for Ari’s face, turning it so he could examine the wound. He sighed and said, “I guess it could be worse.”
“Yeah,” Ari said. “It could have been a gunshot wound.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said. Nick gave her a lingering kiss.
Ari kissed him back, but with hesitation. They were still in the parking lot after all. When they parted, she said, “It’s true. Thank God Davis was there.”
“Thank God for that,” he said. She noted the sarcasm. “Next time you should decline any invitations. Your instincts may have been right. Sounds like that place is dangerous.”
“The kids weren’t involved. It was other people—outside the match. The event itself carried off without a hitch. You should have seen Curtis. He was so proud.”
Nick seemed irritated. She placed a hand on the back of his neck, running her fingers through the hair at the nape.
“It’s not the first scary situation I’ve been in since I took this job,” she told him.
He glanced over and said, “It’s the first one you’ve been in since we got together. I don’t like it.”
Ari switched the subject to Maria and the limited information the police gave her. Before Nick picked her up, Ari had gone through the moderately sized file on the girl. She’d made sure all her notations were up to date before she made copies to bring to Detective Morgan.
The Glory Police Station was located downtown, not that far from the GYC. Nick parked in the front lot. They walked through a metal detector and Ari approached the desk.
“We’re here to see Detective Morgan,” Ari told the young officer behind the desk.
They didn’t wait long before being ushered back to a small office. Detective Morgan was an older man with gray, short hair. A large man, he gave off an imposing vibe, although his eyes held the weary look of some of the older case managers Ari worked with.
His first reaction was a raised eyebrow at Ari’s bruised face. “That’s quite a bruise,” he said, pointing to the two chairs in his office.
