The Kiss That Counted

by Karin Kallmaker

  For a shining moment she sat there, "gobsmacked," to quote Tre. Her colleagues finished singing and burst into applause.

  "It's about time," Julia announced. "Sales champ is an understatement because you don't get credit for all the tips you pass on. When I hit that slump last year the lead on that medical group saved my life."

  "Blow out the candle," Tr e encouraged her. "I think you deserve it because the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce is signing tomorrow— "

  "And Cray says he's going to do a blueprint—"

  "That stack of business cards you got at the Mile High Round Table was a gold mine—"

  "The South Metro Economic Development meetings turned out to be a great payoff—"

  CJ blew out the candle and was glad of the chance to hide her face. Everyone was saying such nice things, but they didn't know that she only passed on tips and leads she didn't think she could use and it seemed a shame that someone else couldn't get the payoff. She wasn't the nice person they seemed to think—she had them all conned, didn't she?

  It hurt to think of them all that way, as merely her cons and not part of a team. Wasn't it realistic, though?

  There was no way the muffin would feed everybody, but she chopped it into wedges and invited others to share. She did it to save the calories, not because she was unselfish, she told herself brutally.

  "Here's the best part," Julia said, after licking her fingers. She pulled the first section of the paper from underneath the Metro pages. "Right up here—there you are!"

  A teasertag line directed readers to learn about the woman named Realtor of the Year. It must be a slow news day.

  Sunlight from the window behind her turned cold. Her vision swam.

  Julia's exultant voice came from far away. "Your picture came out so well, even the small version. Front page of the Post! You'll have to get extra copies for your family!"

  She couldn't leave without seeing Karita one last time. She wanted to leave her ideas for Emily's fund-raising, too. If she'd actually done something good for someone, they could damn well get a chance to use it. She didn't want to go but now she was paying the price of success. Do a great job and your picture ends up on the front page of the paper. Who knew?

  Every corner in the financial district had a newspaper stand, or at least felt like it did. A glance in the window at Gracie's had her likeness casually spread on every table. Little versions of her face stared back at her wherever she looked, like something out of a Hitchcock film. Daria would find her now. Any of them could find her now.

  She didn't remember driving home, but as she got out of the car she automatically checked the entrance, alleys and nearby parked cars in her apartment complex. She peeled off the business clothes that represented CJ Roshe and pulled on jeans, sneakers and a long-sleeved shirt. A plain backpack got stuffed with the bundles of fifties—the gun she relocked in the safe. Someone would find it, but there was no helping that. She actually hoped it was the authorities because the gun would finally be disposed of safely. She reassured herself that her fingerprints from the only minute she had ever held it were no longer on it, and hadn't been since she'd reclaimed it from the irrigation pipe where her father had stashed it.

  Her yet unneeded winter parka she stuffed into the pack on top of the money, then put it in her largest suitcase. A couple of pairs of shoes, slacks and a few shirts and undergarments went into the case as well. She got the file folder with her list from her office. and pushed it down amongst the clothes, decided she would take her laptop after all and then zipped the suitcase closed. She'd dump her cell phone and BlackBerry after seeing Emily. Her car she'd leave at the Salt Lake City airport though she intended to take the train toward the north from there. Half the people from the Gathering knew how to track a car's vehicle ID number—they knew how to eradicate it from the vehicle, too—but few would have the moxie to trace her passport through Canadian customs.

  Canada would be okay. They even allowed gay marriage, not that it would ever do her any good. She could learn to end her sentences in a question. Curling might be as much fun as soccer. She wouldn't miss work, wouldn't wonder if Burnett had made his first big deal, not even if Emily raised a pile of cash. There was only one thing she would really miss, damn it. It was painfully clear that only one thing counted.

  Why did she have to find out that something could matter to her as much as this, only to have to run such a short time later? Don't say it isn't fair, she told herself. Karma dances to its own tune. You were kissed by an angel and changed forever. It was greedy to have dreamed of more.

  Rationality wasn't her strong point, right then. She knew, without a doubt, that Daria would show up at her place of business tomorrow. She'd hint, make it clear she could humiliate CJ, drop a clue or two about her past. When no one else was paying attention, Daria would talk about the Kentucky tipline that paid for information about fugitives, but all would be well if CJ paid. And paid.

  That wasn't the scary part, though. It was the way they would try to get her back. Remind her of all the great cons she'd done, what a natural she obviously was. Her own DNA would betray her. All those ancestors with careers as thieves would try to drag her back into the life. She'd only gotten out of it before because prison gave her a chance to make a break for it. She wasn't going back to prison again. Television could romanticize life behind bars, but she hadn't forgotten. She didn't want to find out if the memories of detention could negate the call of the thief inside her.

  Daria scared her, but it was her own nature that had always terrified her.

  Canada it was. She didn't know was how easy or hard it would be to get ID in Canada. Last time she'd had to do it the world had been pre-jihad, pre-speed-of-light information. Nevertheless, she'd go so far north it wouldn't be worth it to any of them to come looking for her.

  She rolled the suitcase out of her apartment and didn't look back. She thought she might be hungry, and it was a habit to crave coffee. The sun was setting in crimson due to wildfires in the foothills, but she didn't look overlong at the beautiful mountains. There were mountains in Canada.

  Like the drive home, the cross-town journey to the shelter was a blur. She took the open spot right in front of the house and saw no one in the vicinity. With only the folio containing her materials for Emily in hand she walked briskly to the front porch and rang the bell. Less than an hour and she would be on her way.

  A minute later the door opened and Karita was there, smiling at her in shy greeting as she held the door widely so CJ could enter. "Congratulations, Realtor of the Year."

  "Woman Realtor of the Year. The man gets announced tomorrow. You saw the paper."

  "Yeah, on a newsstand when I was leaving work. You just missed Emily. She left with Anita about five minutes ago. I doubt she'll be more than a half hour, though. She knows you're expected and Tuesdays the clients tend to arrive later in the evening."

  "No problem," CJ said. The sight of Karita weakened her resolve. Her head was losing to her heart, and didn't want to hear that losing now would be losing the whole game. She ached to be closer, to hide inside the reality of the silver light. It was a weak moment, wanting Karita to somehow cradle her in safety, to rescue her from the piranhas. But the piranhas would then gnaw on Karita instead, and CJ was not going to make her own life easier by putting her past into someone else's present, not if she could help it.

  Karita was chattering about the ways Tuesday nights differed from Friday nights. "We usually only accept women escaping a situation that happened in the last twelve hours, but tonight we have two clients who are in the system and need a stay-over in transition from a halfway house to a group home. They tend to be women without kids since those with kids get into a slightly higher priority in the system."

  "So tonight's not a night when you need extra staff on hand." CJ tried to commit the long, lean body to memory. Karita was all lines in her legs and arms, but then her neck and hands curved. The smooth silk of her hair framed the cheekbones, the lips, the
shoulders—it was so easy to see her as that Madonna but nothing about the way CJ felt was ethereal.

  "Not usually, though Ulli is here most Tuesdays. She lives in the neighborhood and gives a few hours to check the kitchen supplies and make up a shopping list."

  CJ was introduced to the gray-haired, grandmotherly Ulli, who clucked and tsk'd her way through an inventory of the cupboards.

  As if to make a liar of her, a police department social worker with a client in tow arrived and Karita took both of them into the dining room for the paperwork. The kitchen seemed chilly and dark without her. After just a few minutes the social worker left and CJ chatted absently with Ulli, all the while going back and forth between the memory of what would likely be the only kiss she'd ever share with Karita, and the knowledge that once she got a full tank of gas her next stop would be somewhere in Utah.

  Maybe she should just leave the folio for Emily and go. Let Emily sort through the ideas. Emily didn't have the time to do any of them, nor the contacts, but maybe someone else would come along and implement it for her.

  It took a moment for her to realize that the thumping she heard wasn't random. She'd been in the shelter long enough to do the logical thing—she looked at the monitors. She blinked at the one for the front porch—she only had a brief glimpse of a blue jacket that might have been a police officer's before the jacket's wearer reared back and smashed a baseball bat into the cubbyhole where the security camera was fastened. The monitor went blank and the next thump was clearly on the front door.

  Her heart pounding, fingers. refusing to obey her, CJ still managed to get the phone on Emily's desk to her ear and the buttons pressed for 9-1-1. Ulli had been kneeling on a counter, but was already next to CJ at the desk, who passed the handset over. "When the operator answers, just tell her what's happening. A really angry man with a baseball bat is pounding on the shelter door and has already taken out the security camera. Just tell them—"

  Ulli began repeating CJ's words as CJ dashed for the dining room. Karita already had the door open and was encouraging the terrified client, who flinched violently at every blow to the door, to go upstairs.

  "What's the procedure?" CJ put one arm around the client and half dragged her toward the stairs.

  Karita's voice was shaky with adrenaline. "Tell them to lock themselves in their rooms, together if they want. And to stay there until a police officer's tells them to come out."

  CJ did as Karita instructed. One of the clients immediately took charge of the newcomer and locked the door with them both in her assigned room. The other client wouldn't answer her door at first, and CJ gave up trying to get an answer. She'd no sooner turned away when the door was opened a crack.

  "You tell that bastard to leave me alone."

  "We don't know who it is, but please stay put and keep your door locked."

  "It's my bastard husband, that's who it is."

  CJ could only see a pale eye and a hint of blond hair. "How do you know?"

  "I told the son-of-a-bitch not to come looking for me here when I called him."

  Skeptically, CJ asked, "What phone did you use?"

  "I got one of those disposable cell phones."

  "You were supposed to give that up while you stayed here!"

  "I'm not letting Miss La-Dee-Dah downstairs burn my minutes."

  CJ pointed a shaking finger "He's here to get you. You've put everyone in danger."

  The woman shut the door in CJ's face and turned the lock. Damn it, CJ thought, I don't care what Emily says, some people don't deserve help. She was only a few feet away by the time she heard the woman yelling into her phone. The thumping on the door stopped, so maybe their screaming match would distract the husband until help arrived.

  The crashing of breaking glass told her she'd been too optimistic. She could hear his uninhibited ranting, which included ironically calling out, "Open up! This is the police!" Maybe he was a cop gone berserk.

  Glad of her sure-footed sneakers, she skittered around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, frantically looking for Karita.

  "You stay on the line with the police," Karita was saying to Ulli. "Get in Em's office. and lock that door."

  "We should all get in there." CJ cleared the kitchen door. "He's not in yet, but any second."

  Karita screamed a warning, and CJ ducked as the husband yelled, "Wrong, bitch! I'm already here."

  Duck, scramble, get under—it all came back to her. It was a kitchen, staying low was crucial. Nothing hot on the stove. Knives, Aunt Bitty enjoyed throwing knives. CJ was crawling under the farmhouse table in an instant, kicking the chairs out from under it into her assailant's path. She didn't know how long she would have to last, but she hoped to get to the other side of the room before he did, and then on the other side of the office. door with Ulli and Karita. With the three of them to brace it, they might hold him off until help arrived.

  "Where's my wife?" The table jumped in place from the impact of the baseball bat.

  Out the other side, CJ lunged for the office. door. Ulli was in the far corner, clutching the phone. CJ started to pull the door shut before she realized Karita was not in the room with them.

  She threw the door open again and felt the blood drain from her face. Karita was standing within reach of the baseball bat. Hands at her sides, she made steady eye contact with the crazed man. He panted, momentarily stymied as she stood her ground.

  "I will tell you where she is, but you have to put the bat down first"

  "I can find her myself."

  A security guard, CJ thought. The blue jacket, the dark polyester pants, vaguely like a police officer's, but not. Maybe a gun, maybe not.

  Her voice steady and calm, Karita said, "I know which room she's in. The police are on their way. You only have a minute to choose. Put the bat down. It's your one chance to be unarmed when the police get here."

  A siren rose in the distance, supporting Karita's suggestion.

  "He's high on something." The words were out of CJ's mouth before she was aware of her impression or that she was going to speak.

  Her pounding heart muffed his words, but CJ was pretty sure he sneered, "I'll take you with me," as he leveled a Babe Ruth swing at Karita's head.

  Karita's disbelief was nearly fatal, but she threw herself out of the way in time. The bat embedded in the Sheetrock behind where Karita's head had been moments before. CJ shoved the table as hard as she could, catching him in the hip while he tried to free the bat from the wall.

  He shoved the table back at her so quickly the edge caught her in her belly. Doubled over, she slammed her knee into a chair. Her knee buckled and she hit the linoleum hard, taking the weight on her elbow and wrist. Lots of things went pop but all she could think about was Karita's proximity to Aunt Bitty—no, not Aunt Bitty, that asshole with the bat.

  Karita didn't think he'd kill her.

  CJ knew he would.

  Karita was backpedaling across the kitchen, putting herself between the maniac and the office. where Ulli was yelling desperately into the phone. How long had it been, CJ wondered. It felt like forever—three, maybe four minutes. The siren seemed no closer.

  She struggled back to her feet, picked up the nearest thing to hand—the dish drainer, and threw it at him. She completely missed and thought how embarrassed Lucy would have been by that throw but he focused on her, like a crazed, huffing bull.

  "Karita, get in the office. and lock the door. I can take care of myself!"

  "No!"

  "I can't protect both of us—you make sure Ulli is safe."

  Karita ducked inside the door, but didn't shut it. "Don't be stupid, CJ. Run for it and I'll lock this!"

  CJ couldn't put much weight on her knee and she didn't want Karita to know it. Karita was still an easier target and his attention was starting to slide away from CJ back to the much closer prey.

  CJ's hand closed on a mug and she did Lucy proud with that one, catching him on the shoulder. His grin was feral as he decided she
made better sport.

  "Come on, big man." CJ let all her hate for him and his type show in her voice. "I'm not afraid of you. You think I haven't seen people die? I pulled the trigger myself once, so come on, big man. Show me what you got. I've got an aunt who would have grand-slammed you out of the park by now. You going to let some woman hurt you and get away with it?"

  She backed slowly toward the rear entrance, thinking about the shelves there she might be able to pull over to give her time to escape in spite of her throbbing knee.

  "You cunts are all alike," he snarled.

  "Oh, you think like that—no wonder you can't satisfy a woman."

  "I'll take care of you, cunt, and you'll feel like one before I'm done."

  Without warning, CJ was seized from behind and pulled to the floor. Something sharp stabbed into her hip. She struggled against the binding arms.

  A commanding voice yelled, "Police! Freeze!"

  Emily said in her ear, "Get down. Shit! Stop fighting me."

  CJ went limp. A real live policewoman, in a real live uniform, with a very real gun, went on shouting orders and in only a few seconds their assailant was face down on the floor. and the baseball bat kicked into a corner.

  The officer's barked something into the radio on her shoulder. CJ stayed where she was, pretty sure her head was on a particularly cushy part of Emily's body. Sirens got louder, then abruptly stopped.

  "Is anyone injured? Where's the blood from?"

  Karita, sounding a great deal more shaky, said, "It's mine. I whacked myself on the door. It's just a scrape."

  CJ decided it was time to sit up. Her wrist and elbow screamed at her, then she felt that sharp pain in her hip again. Shifting in place she saw that she'd landed on a garden claw that had fallen out of the little basket where Emily kept clippers and a pair of worn gloves. It could have been worse. The clippers had quite a point on them. The tines on the claw had put a hole in her jeans, damn it.

  Authoritative pounding began on the front door and Emily tiptoed across the kitchen to let in the other police officers. Handcuffs were produced, and the jerk was finally dragged off the kitchen floor.