Tsunami Crimes

by Chrys Fey

  No one survives a kill order.

  Chapter Seven

  Donovan sat across from Thorn at the dining room table as he had a few days ago. This time, though, Beth sat at the head of the table, and the photo—in a clear evidence bag—lay in the middle like a morbid centerpiece.

  “What do we do?” Donovan said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “I’ll take the photo to the crime lab,” Thorn said. “It’ll be checked for fingerprints, and the handwriting will be run through our database for any possible matches. As for the sedan, we can have officers patrolling the city keep an eye out for any suspicious sedans with damaged bumpers, but without a full plate number, we won’t be able to get information on the owner.”

  Donovan knew that was the most that could be done, but it didn’t feel like enough. “What about the threats?”

  Thorn sighed. His shoulders lowered. “I think it’s time we take drastic measures with that.”

  Donovan frowned. “Like what?”

  Thorn’s gaze shifted toward Beth, and then back to Donovan. “Like the two of you staying under lock and key. At least until you can leave for your honeymoon.”

  “And when we get back from our honeymoon, and if Jackson’s men are still at large, we’re back to house arrest?”

  Thorn nodded. “Unfortunately.”

  Donovan mashed his teeth together. Will we have to hide for the rest of our lives? Screw that! He was about to shut down the idea when Beth lifted her head.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Her voice was a deep growl. He had never heard her sound so enraged. Her eyes shot flaming daggers at Thorn. Her chest heaved. “I’m not going to be a prisoner in my own home. I’m not going to let these assholes win.”

  She shoved to her feet, knocking over her chair. It hit the tile with a loud smack. Her hands were balled into fists. She looked ready to beat the crap out of someone.

  Donovan understood why.

  “They tried to kill me! They want us dead. Dead! But there’s nothing we can do to stop them? There’s never anything we can do!” She picked up her empty coffee mug, whirled, and chucked it at the far wall where it shattered into several large chunks.

  Her fingers dove into her hair, and she stood facing the wall as she tried to rein in her anger. After a moment, her hands fell to her sides. Her arms were limp as her fight fled, turning her body to gelatin. She turned to them. Her cheeks were a fading fuchsia.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just…” She paused as if to consider the right word. “Pissed.”

  Tears gleamed in her eyes like glass. She padded to the living room on bare feet and plopped onto the couch as if exhausted.

  Thorn appeared to be at a loss over how to deal with a distraught woman. His wide eyes, pale face, and sweaty brow briefly amused Donovan.

  “You’re excused, Thorn.”

  Thorn’s features dissolved with relief as he sprang to his feet. “I’ll do everything in my power to find these guys. You have my word.” He hurried out and shut the door with a soft click.

  Donovan went to Beth. He picked up her feet from the coffee table and placed them in his lap. His fingers rubbed the heels of her feet.

  Despite her anger, Beth couldn’t suppress a giggle. She tried to free her ticklish feet, but he stole them fast and continued to massage. She scrunched up her toes, hiding the pink polish on her nails.

  “Donovan, you know I hate it when you touch my feet.”

  “Shut up and enjoy it.”

  He applied pressure to a few points and had the satisfaction of watching her melt at his touch. “We’re going to get through this, Beth. Jackson Storm isn’t going to win, and his lowlife followers will be caught.” He held her gaze. “This will end.”

  She shook her head. Her face registered an utter lack of hope. “When?”

  He shifted. “I don’t know, but it will.” He kissed her frowning mouth. “A week stuck inside with me won’t be so bad. Imagine the things we can do.” He winked.

  The corners of her lips twitched. “No, it won’t be so bad.”

  ****

  Beth called her assistant to take over her self-defense classes, and Donovan bolted the door and shut the blinds. For the next five days, they stayed indoors. They played poker and Scrabble, the two games they used to challenge each other, as well as Monopoly and chess. They had movie marathons and had a lot of fun in the bedroom. By the sixth day, however, the day before their wedding, they were suffering from cabin fever.

  Donovan woke with the intense urge to escape, to leave the shrinking confines of the apartment and see the vast sky above him. He slipped out of bed, changed into clean clothes, and snuck out of the apartment.

  At noon, he would be picking up his mom and grandma. Not having Ryan there was going to be difficult. Ever since Donovan was born, Ryan had always been there. He taught Donovan to ride a bike, gave him pointers to ask out a girl he liked in fifth grade, and slipped him his first beer at the age of sixteen. But now, for the day that trumped all, Ryan would be absent. Donovan wanted Ryan to have his back at the altar and to talk him through his cold feet. More than that, he wished Ryan could’ve met Beth. Ryan would’ve approved with a wink and a slap on the back, but knowing that and experiencing it in real life were two different things.

  Ryan would be missing from all of Donovan’s future happy moments too—the birth of his first child and all of those family milestones. Donovan didn’t know how he’d get on without Ryan there to share his joy.

  Needing to feel close to his brother, he drove to the cemetery. The sun was warm, the wind cutting through the oak trees cooling as Donovan walked over vibrant grass between rows and rows of neat graves. Arrangements of plastic rainbow-colored flowers poked brightly out of the ground in front of carved stones. He passed an elderly woman kneeling at a gravesite. She pressed a crinkled handkerchief to her chest and held a worn picture in her other hand. Her frail body shook with her grief. Donovan’s heart tore for her. He disliked seeing women in tears; from young girls to grandmothers, he always wanted to comfort them. He trudged silently past, not wanting to intrude on her sorrow.

  A couple of minutes later, he stood at his brother’s grave. The stone inscribed with “Beloved son and brother” made Donovan’s throat constrict. He sank to his knees and stared at his brother’s engraved name.

  “Hey, Ryan.”

  His voice caught. He cleared his throat.

  “I miss you every day. I miss having a beer with you and watching the game. I miss your ridiculous bear hugs. But most of all, I miss you being a phone call away.” He took a shuddering breath. “I never told you how much I appreciated everything you did for me. You were my only father figure and the best brother anyone could ask for. I don’t know where I would be without you.” Tears swelled and pressed against his eyelids in their desperation to get free. “If it weren’t for you, I would not be the man I am today.”

  He dropped his head and let his emotions break free. His chest heaved with each strangled breath he tried to take.

  Over the past year, the painful grief he felt had lessened, but moments like this punctuated Ryan’s absence. After several minutes, he lifted his head. His eyes landed on the gravestone. “I’m marrying the woman of my dreams tomorrow. Her name is Beth, Beth Kennedy. She’s smart, strong, and sexy as hell. She’s one in a trillion…the one for me. You would’ve liked her.” He smiled at the bitterness of the statement. “Although you’re not here, you’ll be with us tomorrow. That’ll have to be enough.”

  He pushed to his feet and laid his hand on the top of the headstone, as if it were his brother’s sturdy shoulder. “I love you, bro, and I’ll always miss you.” Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he turned from the grave and walked back to his truck feeling as though he were leaving a giant part of himself behind.

  Twenty minutes later, he arrived at home. He let himself in to find Beth pacing.

  She clutched her cell phone in one hand and held the landline to her ear with the
other. Her eyebrows were stitched together, and her mouth was drawn down at the sides. When he walked in, she tensed as if ready to fight. Then her jaw went slack.

  “Oh, thank, God! He’s here. He’s back.” She dropped the phones on the couch and sprang toward him. Her eyes were wild with a fierce mix of fear and anger. Her cheeks were as red as five-degree burns. She shoved him, making his back collide into the closed door.

  “Where the hell did you go? I was worried sick.”

  Her anger caught him off guard. “What’s the matter with you?”

  Her lips parted. “What…” Her voice failed. While shaking her head, she took a step back. “What’s the matter with me? What’s the matter with you? Damn it, Donovan, we’re not supposed to leave the apartment. Isn’t that what Thorn told us? Isn’t that what you’ve told me? Repeatedly? I woke, and you weren’t in bed. Fine. No big deal.”

  She waved her arms in the air.

  He feared she was hysterical.

  “But then you were nowhere in the apartment, and I find the chain off the door… For the past five days, that chain has been in place.” She pointed at the gold chain. “When I saw it there…dangling…I freaked. I thought something happened to you.”

  Her arms went lax. Tears gleamed in her eyes.

  “I thought you were kidnapped.” Her voice was small. “I tried to call you, and there was no answer. Every time, there was no answer. I was so scared I called Thorn. He couldn’t get a hold of you either. Why? Why would you leave the day before our wedding?”

  Liquid diamonds streamed down her cheeks, lingered on her jaw line, and plunged to the tile.

  Seeing how upset she was over his disappearance tugged Donovan’s heartstrings into knots. He hadn’t meant to worry her. The fact he did made him feel like a major jackass. His regret and her emotions choked him.

  He pulled her to him and tucked her into his body. “I’m so sorry, baby. I really am. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “That’s obvious.” Her reply was muffled against his chest. She inched back and peered up at him with pink eyes. “Where’d you go?”

  He wiped her cheeks dry with his thumbs. “I went to Ryan’s grave.”

  Grief flickered over Beth’s eyes before she squeezed them shut. She slowly nodded. “I understand.” She peered at him. “But I wish you would’ve told me…left me a note…something. I would’ve understood. I would’ve told you to be careful, ask you to take Thorn along for safety, but I wouldn’t have stopped you from going.”

  Donovan sighed. “When my grief and anger take control, all rational thought goes out the window.”

  “I’m your fiancée,” she reminded him. “I know that, too.”

  He cupped her chin with his fingers. “I think you know me more than I know myself.” He touched her lips with his. While gazing into her red-streaked eyes, his fingers combed through her hair. “Did you really think I’d let someone take me away from you on the eve of our wedding?”

  “I didn’t think you’d have much say if they did,” she mumbled.

  His hands moved to frame her face. “Look around, baby. Do you think I would’ve gone quietly?” Nothing was out of place. No chairs were knocked over, and no lamps were smashed on the ground. A fight hadn’t been put up. If someone had tried to take Donovan, he would’ve fought with everything he had in him. If he had gone quietly, they would’ve killed him. And then her; they both would’ve fought for their lives, for each other.

  “You’re right,” she said. “This place would’ve been a war zone.” She gave him a strained smile. The corners of her mouth twitched.

  Worry flitted through Donovan like the wings of a raven. Beth had been through so much since they met—a hurricane, an earthquake, and almost being Jackson Storm’s hostage. Then pile on everything that had happened recently. How was she holding herself together? Or was she?

  After his brother’s murder, he went through all sorts of hell. He didn’t doubt he had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Now he feared she could be suffering from the same illness. The one thing he wanted most in the world was to protect Beth, and he felt as though he wasn’t doing a good job of that. He wished he could take her away from there. Their honeymoon couldn’t come fast enough. He thought they would be safe in Hawaii with the Pacific Ocean between them and Jackson’s puppets.

  He stroked her arms. “Are you hungry?”

  She shrugged.

  “How about I make us breakfast?”

  “Sounds like a lot of grease.” Her smile was less strained. “Sounds good.”

  He scrambled eggs, fried bacon, and buttered toast. On the side, he managed to make parfait cups with vanilla yogurt and sliced strawberries.

  That night, he drew Beth a bath with the lilac bubbles she loved. Mountains of fragrant foam floated atop the warm water. Along the ledge of the tub, he lit a few candles. The flickers from the flames made shadows on the ceiling. Satisfied with his work, he sought out Beth and found her curled into a corner of the couch, looking as delicate as a porcelain doll. He slipped his fingers between hers, coaxed her to her feet, and led her to the bathroom. At the door, he gently pushed on the small of her back.

  “You did this?”

  He shrugged. “Who else?”

  She looped her arms around his middle and pressed her cheek to his chest. “It’s lovely.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “I thought it might help you relax.”

  Drawing back, she looked up at him. “Thank you.”

  Shadows darkened the skin around her eyes, making them look bruised. The whites of her eyes were an exhausted pink. He knew the bath couldn’t fix all that, but it was a good start.

  She slipped her T-shirt over her head, revealing a black bra. When she started to undo her jeans, he turned to leave.

  “You’re not joining me?”

  He paused at the door. Her tan torso was exposed. A bit of purple silk peeked out from her jeans. She looked sexy, and yet, fragile with the fingerprints of fatigue on her face. He shook his head. “This one is for you. Enjoy it.”

  While she soaked, he pulled out a piece of paper from his sock drawer—his marriage vows. He read through the words he had been perfecting over the past year and added one more oath—Protect.

  Chapter Eight

  Early the next morning, Leighton whisked Beth to her apartment to get ready. Her stomach was as unsettled as a storm cloud ready to spit lightning bolts. She sat in a chair with her robe fastened around her shivering body. No matter what she did, she couldn’t stop herself from shaking like a flag in tornado winds.

  “Oh for goodness sakes! You’re getting married, not going to the gallows.” Leighton stuck another bobby pin into the masterpiece she was creating atop Beth’s head. “The two of you have been living together for over a year, so there won’t be any surprises. It’s just a short walk and an exchange of vows. After that, everything will go back to normal. You’ll just have the title of wife. Besides, you’re madly in love, and tonight, you’ll be able to have your way with him.” She winked her fake lashes at Beth. “You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  Beth hadn’t told Leighton about what had been happening lately. She flattened her palms against her thighs and the soft cotton of her robe. “I know,” she whispered. But her nerves continued to clang like church bells.

  “Would you like something to take the edge off?”

  Beth shook her head. “I’m fine.” But her heart beat erratically.

  Leighton picked up an aerosol can and created a cloud of hairspray around Beth’s head. “All right. Your hair is done. I’ll start your makeup now.”

  Beth sat as still as she could while Leighton painted her face. The whole time, her thoughts circled round in her head. Marriage to Donovan was all she wanted, but the past week weighed heavily on her. If she hadn’t been chased. If there was no threat on their lives. If Jackson Storm didn’t exist, this moment would be lighter, happier. But because those things had occurred and Jackson Storm was mo
re dangerous than ever, she was bursting with a dozen emotions. At the top of the emotional peak was her deep love for Donovan. Only that could destroy the others. Only that gave her strength.

  Leighton presented Beth with a handheld mirror. She gazed upon her reflection. Her hair was arranged in an artistic knot of curls and adorned with a small, silver tiara. Her cheeks were a pretty mauve to match her tan, and her eyes shimmered with a stunning blend of browns.

  “I feel beautiful.”

  “You’ve always been beautiful,” Leighton corrected. “Now you’re a bride. Or you will be once you put this on.” She picked up the white garment bag from the bed.

  Beth slipped on the dress and stood before the mirror. The bodice was a vibrant purple that faded degree by degree into a soft lavender and then white. A smile dawned on her face. She was going to marry Donovan. For better and for worse.

  Leighton drove her to the Kraft Azalea Gardens in a red sports car with white streamers and flowers trailing behind it from the chrome bumper. During the drive, they were in the middle of a police car sandwich. Donovan, Thorn, Officer Burnett, and Chief Cormac agreed on one thing for the wedding; Beth’s safety took precedence. She didn’t mind the presence of the police cars, though.

  A peace descended over her as if hundreds of butterflies had landed on her. Their beautiful, calm energy seeped into her pores. Jackson and his murderous minions could not ruin her wedding day. She wouldn’t let them.

  When they arrived at the Kraft Azalea Gardens, she spotted the cops posted along the perimeter. Their presence comforted her even more. She stepped out of the car and into a spear of sunlight breaking through a fluffy, white cloud. The golden embrace warmed her skin and reminded her of her mom’s hugs. She could almost feel her mom’s arms around her, and her hands stroking the back of her gown. In that moment, her mom wasn’t dead but alive in Beth’s memory and in her heart. Alive in the sunlight and wind.

  Beth heard her mom’s soft, sweet voice speaking to her. Look at you, my baby girl. You’re all grown up, and it’s your wedding day. I’m so proud of you, sweetie. You’re going to live an extraordinary life with Donovan. Now go and grab that life with both hands.